A Challenge for Early Childhood Environmental Education?

Abstract

This chapter orients the reader by introducing the underlying premise of the book, in addition to outlining the remaining six chapters. The book's foundation lies squarely in an era in which environmental education has been described as one of the most pressing educational concerns of our time, leading to the critical need for further insights in understanding how best to approach the learning and teaching of environmental education in early childhood education. In this chapter and indeed this book more broadly we address this concern by identifying two principles for applying play-based learning in early childhood environmental education. The principles we identify are the result of research conducted with teachers and children using three different types of play-based learning, namely open-ended play, modelled-play and purposefully framed play. Such play types connect with the historical use of play-based learning in early childhood education as a basis for pedagogy.