Young Voices: The Challenges and Opportunities that Arise in Early Childhood Environmental Education Research

Abstract

The number of early childhood environmental education programs are on the rise in Canada and although young children have been quite marginalized from environmental education research, better understanding young children's relationship with the natural world is increasingly seen as important. Including young children themselves in research is important; however it is essential for researchers to utilize developmentally appropriate research tools and data collection methods, just as environmental educators should create programs which are congruent with the emotional, physical, and cognitive abilities of young children. Including young children in environmental education research can be a challenge, but there are several data collection methods which have proven to be successful, for example, the Mosaic approach which is discussed in this article.