WHY DO YOUNG CHILDREN NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

There is a great article on Early Childhood Australia web site http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ discussing the pros and cons of talking to children about climate change and whether this would be a frightening topic for children.

The article argues that it is irresponsible not to share information about how climate change may affect the lives of young children both now and in the future. We would also be missing an opportunity to help them learn how their actions can impact on the future of the planet. We can do this in a way that uses play and is not designed to make children anxious or depressed about their world. No doom and gloom approach should be used but rather a positive approach about how they as individuals can help their planet.

The best approach is to work with families, because they are the prime role model for their children; and with the children to enables them to learn through hands-on, concrete experiences how they can care for their world.

“A play approach to sustainability may involve, for example, children saving drinking water after meal-times to place on the garden; or it may include setting up a miniature compost bin in the home-corner kitchen so children can role-play putting scraps in the bin (as well as placing real food scraps in an actual compost bin).”[1]

Learning about sustainability can begin with very young children staff can role model and communicate what they are doing to children so that children learn e.g. simple comments like “lets put the tissue in the bin so it is safe and doesn’t end up as rubbish in the playground” can start sewing the seeds in children of a better way to behave to help the planet. From these simple beginnings of communicating with children to working with children on projects in the centres is just a short step. There are a myriad of centre based activities and projects children can be involved in as well as moving towards involving children in local and nation wide projects like “Clean up Australia Day”. The community and nation wide projects are ideal activities for school aged children to be involved in and through the children and their enthusiasm we can involve families which may well change some attitudes in adults.

By involving children in sustainability we are opening up their world to a range of knowledge e.g. science, technology, geography and social studies. There is also the benefit of assisting children to develop habits and attitudes that will last them a life time.

Submitted by: Joanna Pickford

[1] Source: Early Childhood Australia. 2008. Why do young people need to kknow about climage change. Early Childhood Austalia. Available from: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/resource_themes/sustainability_global_warming_and_climate_change/why_do_young_children_need_to_know_about_climate_change.html