Climate Resilience in Early Childhood Education

Builds Resilience

• Promotes embodied, sensory and rhythmic self-regulation through engagement with the living world
• Promotes safety and belonging through shared joy – child directed play in the context of co-regulatory relationships with teachers
• Promotes sensory and emotional literacy (integrated with Social Emotional curriculum)
• Provides opportunities for mindful connection to the more-than-human

Fosters Stewardship and Reciprocity

• Harnesses young children’s vivid imaginations to promote empathy for all living beings
• Provides simple and achievable stewardship activities, such as tending plants and worm bin composting
• Uses story and song to demonstrate care and stewardship
• Teachers model pro-environmental behaviors, demonstrating actions that tend to the health of the planet and children’s wellbeing

Developmentally Appropriate

• Focuses on social and emotional tasks, developing relationships with the more-than-human world.
• Recognizes that early childhood is the primary time to develop a sense of belonging and empathy, and learn about reciprocity
• Keeps cognitive information developmentally appropriate – concrete, with local examples & achievable actions
• Focuses on demonstrations of how we can help and heal the more-than-human. Uses positive descriptive language to teach pro-environmental behaviors. Ex: “We turn off the water so the plants and animals can have what they need too.”
• Avoids existential concepts that are frightening and too abstract for young children to understand