Tag: Collaborating

Climate Anxiety and Agency

  • Key idea: It is important to express our emotions – e.g. Learning to share feelings with family, teacher and friends, learning to identify and label basic emotions (happy, sad, scared, angry) in story books and in others (UC3.3).
  • Key Idea: We should support children in feeling empowered and optimistic for the future – Sustainable citizens, our youngest, and their elders together, are contributing towards solving the problems that we face. 

Title:  The Last Tree
Author: Emily Haworth-Booth
Illustrator:
Publisher:  Farshore
Publication Date: 2020
ISBN: ‎ 978-1843654377

Before the community realised the consequences of what they were doing, they cut down most of the trees, the forest becomes thinner, until there is just one last tree standing. It was left for the children to find a solution.

Emergent learning:

Bad things happen and we want our children to grow up to be resilient, that means that we must provide support and encouragement when they face challenges, we mustn’t be over-protective. If we share a picture story book that is focused upon sustainability, and it leaves the child feeling sad, scared or angry then we have failed.  Perhaps we have found the wrong book, or perhaps we have shared it badly – to get it right, what we must remember is that whatever danger, crisis or problem that the story is addressing we must leave the child feeling that there is something that we can do together to help the situation.  We should leave them feeling empowered and optimistic for the future. Sustainable citizens, young and old together can solve the problems that we face. 

Activity recommendation:

We contribute towards early childhood education for sustainable citizenship education whenever we involve children in our day to day sustainable decision making, explaining to them the reasons that we are choosing the sustainable option in our purchase of a particular food item, domestic appliance or vehicle. We can provide positive role models by involving them in our conservation of the natural environment, of energy and in our reductions in waste. We can also help them control and express their emotions freely by talking about our own feelings, and the feeling states of others in story books, and in real life.  Always celebrate the collective progress that is being made to create a more sustainable world and foster the children’s pride in being a part of it.

Other Book Recommendations:

Safety and Resilience

  • Key idea: Climate change causes extreme weather – e.g. Making preparations before a storm, and participating as a team in emergency drills for fire and floods (UC3.2).
  • Key idea: Different weather conditions can affect people’s daily lives – e.g. identifying the effects of extreme weather on the availability of food items (UC5.3).

Title:  Playtown: Emergency
Author: Roger Priddy
Illustrator: Priddy Books
Publisher:  Priddy Books
Publication Date:  2016
ISBN: ‎ 978-1783412822

Children will learn about doctors, firefighters, police and rescue crews, as well as the places they work, the vehicles they drive and equipment they use to do their jobs.

Emergent learning:

Extreme weather events effect us all either directly in causing damage to our homes and lives when there are floods, winds etc. or indirectly through community shared costs and effects upon water hygiene, food production, energy disruption etc. We want children to gain confidence in knowing that with a little team work and community spirit, no problem or emergency will ever be insurmountable. 

A very positive and empowering way to introduce young children to safety as a general theme is to focus on the ‘first responders’; the people who come to help us in an emergency.  Address fears directly, fire engines are big and loud alarms are scary but if we know what to do we don’t have to worry and we can help each other.

Activity recommendation:

The main focus should be on emergency prevention, but we must also be prepared and learn about what we should all be doing in an emergency. There are picture story books to support this but a visit to the fire station or visits from e.g. uniformed firefighters and paramedics will be potentially more memorable and effective.  The trick is to prepare such visits in advance, prepare the adult professional on how to talk to young children and prepare the children for what they may learn. 

Book recommendation: