This paper presents four different methods that can be used to promote children's agency in early childhood environmental education research. These methods include Art Making, Role Playing, Building a Model, and Book Making. Related discussion focuses on the advantages, challenges, and opportunities of each of these interactive data collection and analysis methods. The overall goal of this research project was to engage children as active researchers in all aspects of the research process. Specific strategies were used to engage children in topic selection, question formulation, methods selection, and data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
Thirty-one preschool children enrolled in a university early childhood education program participated in this project. They, along with their teachers and researchers, visited the same patch of forest near their school eleven times over a ten-week period. Each visit lasted approximately one hour, with children spending most of the time engaged in open-ended play and exploration.
The children were invited to participate in the research activities, but were given the option to choose what, if, and how long they wanted to engage in each particular activity. After viewing and discussing video clips of themselves playing in the forest, the children expressed an interest in learning about their experiences of four elements or happenings in the forest: rosebushes, forts/castles/houses, bugs, and sticks/“X-marks-the-spot.” Related research activities then addressed the question of how children experience these elements and happenings in the forest. From visual depictions of different developmentally appropriate data collection methods, children expressed interest in creating art, role-play, building models, and sensory (GoPro) tours. Corresponding data collection centers were constructed in the forest and used by the children to further explore their experiences in the forest. Children's involvement in analyzing and interpreting the data included group discussions and bookmaking activities. The final step in the process involved children presenting their research to family and community members in the forest. This included children presenting the book pages they had created and leading tours of the data collection centers and their special places in the forest.
This research demonstrates that even young children can be meaningfully involved as researchers or co-researchers of a project. This approach to research also recognizes children's agency and their right to participate in matters of relevance to them. The forest as a setting for this research provided “a backdrop for children to reflect on the beauty and awe of nature.” This setting also gave children an opportunity to interact with and incorporate aspects of nature into their artistic creations. Additionally, children's role play in/with nature reflected their interests and understandings of their local ecology.
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