Exploring children’s participation in the framework of early childhood environmental education

Environmental education can engage young children as equal partners through participatory approachesChildren’s right to participate in decision-making concerning nearby environments is an important, yet under researched field. To provide young children with an opportunity to express their needs and to become empowered through engagement in decision-making processes, this study explored young children’s experiences as co-creators of an outdoor space at their nursery school.

The study, which combined participatory action research and participatory planning methods, was conducted with fifteen preschool children (age 4 years) and their teacher at a nursery school in Greece. The first phase of the action research was focused on eliciting children’s ideas for improving their “empty and sterilized” schoolyard. Children explored the yard, took photographs, generated ideas, and created collaborative drawings and playdough models. In the second phase, children created a scale model of their vision for the schoolyard. The model was shared with the larger school community, providing an opportunity for children to communicate their ideas. Children also presented the model in a meeting with the school headmistress. The meeting “evolved into a negotiation between the headmistress and the children, where collective decisions were made by children and adults.” In the final phase, the children took physical action to implement the changes they designed by planting flowers, creating features to attract birds, installing a water table, and constructing an outdoor library. Data sources included children’s drawings, recorded dialogues and interviews with children and teachers, research notes, and photographs.

Three themes emerged from analysis of the data. “Children’s expression of their ideas and the practice of critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration skills” was the first theme. This theme reveals an inquiry-based approach in which children generated questions, communicated their ideas, and found solutions to problems that arose during the schoolyard improvement. The second theme was “the practice of democratic dialogue and the emergence of challenges.” Children’s negotiation with school leadership provided an opportunity for children to advocate for the implementation of their own ideas through which they gained experience in listening to differing opinions and exploring solutions to barriers to their proposed design. Additionally, shared decision-making was somewhat challenging for teachers, however, the participatory approach was supportive for attaining a more democratic and balanced distribution of power. The third theme, “participation and action,” highlights children’s enthusiasm for each phase of the study, which they undertook with joy, interest, and curiosity. Children demonstrated initiative when opportunities arose to communicate their plan to adults and were equally “absorbed” in planting and working in the schoolyard. Children’s participation and action stemmed from having the opportunity to propose and implement their own ideas.

The study demonstrates the potential of young children’s participation and action in collaboration with adults in the context of early childhood environmental education. The researchers conclude that, given the benefits of conducting action research that engages young children as equal contributors, “there is a strong need for an approach to environmental education that focuses on the involvement of children in authentic environmental problems of their immediate surroundings, empowering their participation and action competence.”