Environmental Environment Essay

833 Words2 Pages

Environmental educations in a childhood education system always involve paradigms that expose the child to the natural environment. According to Kim and Lin, exposing young children to the environment is beneficial to their health (42-45). Cognitive development has been associated with the exposure to the environment. Some therapies have always used nature in children with cognitive disorders such as autism to help develop their cognitive skills. It is natural to for children to feel excited and relaxed when exploring nature and playing with children. However, the health benefit is relative. The contemporary children are less exposed to the natural environment because if urbanization and technological advancements. Even in these circumstances, …show more content…

These children grow up carrying the knowledge and attitude into their understanding of the environment and develop commitment towards sustainability. However appropriate educational practices need to be put in place to cultivate the knowledge acquired at an early age. Young children can understand the world by interacting with the natural environment. This interaction results in an attachment to the environment. This attachment can be long lasting or could deteriorate over time following exposure to conflicting views/practices. For instance, For instance, a child grows up knowing that littering is bad for the environment and later learns that littering provides job opportunities. A child may also witness mistreatment of animals which conflicts with his/her attitudes towards other living beings. In a study, younger students maintained higher levels of pro-environment attitudes compared to older students (Lieflander et al. 114). Therefore, environmental education must strive to impart critical thinking on children at a young …show more content…

They then form a bond with nature, embrace it and develop a strong attachment to it. This attachment makes the children not to be afraid of nature. This formed the basis of early environmental education in early childhood. However, Mackenzie et al. argue that the early open-ended play approach is not sufficient to support environmental learning (75-81). More appropriate methods are needed to effectively approach the learning and teaching of environmental education in early

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