The future is in childhood: Evaluation of the quality of sustainability programmes in the early years

Abigail López-Alcarria,Fátima Poza-Vilches,José Gutiérrez-Pérez,Clemente Rodríguez-Sabiote,H Çalişkan,Ş Beşoluk,I Önder,E Masal

doi:10.1051/shsconf/20162601044

Abstract

During the last decade Environmental Education (EE) programs have drawn attraction from both experts and educators as a way to answer the increasing preoccupation about the different challenges and problems faced by the Environment. For this reason, many schools have started programmes and strategies related to EE with different success. In this work, we have carried out a case study over 30 teachers of Early Years Education (EYE), working at preschools in Granada, Spain, in order to assess the implementation of Environmental Education in their daily practice. By means of an interview protocol we have gathered information about 15 different categories encompassed in topics which are central to EE such as curricular innovation, participation of the educational community and sustainable management of the school. Results show how teachers are positive regarding the inclusion of EE in their daily practice and the participation of the community. On the other hand we observed the difficulties faced by the educators to effectively implement EE programs due to lack of economic support by the Administration and the need to carry out an objective consultancy to overcome possible biases which may exist when teachers evaluate their own performance.

Highlights

A good example that examines this field of research can be found in [15], which includes a thorough review of the aforementioned papers and many others related to Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) that were published from 1996 to 2003
We have carried out a first approximation to the situation of EE in Early Years Education (EYE) in the city of Granada (Spain)
By interviewing 30 teachers from 10 different schools we have studied how they apply EE in their daily practice, what kind of activities they make, what values they promote, as well as the involvement of the community in the dynamic of the schools and the sustainable management of the resources

Summary

Introduction

Development of environmental ethics which promote protection of the environment in a sustainable and durable way. A good example that examines this field of research can be found in [15], which includes a thorough review of the aforementioned papers and many others related to EE and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) that were published from 1996 to 2003. One of the goals of the authors is to determine how EE and ESD are approached by researchers in EYE. In this regard, they identified two major approaches in the literature: (1) How teachers understand EE/EDS and (2) How they apply it in their daily practice. Regarding the application of EE/EDS in the curricula, two different trends were found, the first one analyzing the potential of the implementation of EE/EDS in EYE and the second one assessing the efficiency with which it is implemented

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion