13.8.2019

Exploring the Earth Charter for Kindergarten and Daycare in Germany

“Many good ideas were developed”, said Alana Breščanović, Kita-Global head of projects and instructor for prospective early education teachers. Together with 31 early education students, she created ideas on how to translate the Earth Charter themes and values into practice. After the students were introduced to the content, history, and concerns of the Earth Charter they also learned about its four pillars and 16 principles. Many ideas came together when the students planned their Earth Charter action projects on how to use the Earth Charter in a playful way in daycare, kindergarten and preschool.

Alana initiated the workshop and facilitated it together with Ulrike Berghahn an Earth Charter champion from Germany. “The students were motivated and were very engaged. Unfortunately, we only had 4 hours. We could have easily spent the whole day or even a week.” reflected Alana after the students presentations. Soon the students will finish the schoolwork of their vocational training and enter the practice phase, the last year of their education. Then they can test their ideas in practice and bring education for sustainable development with the Earth Charter to their new workplaces.
90 early education students were introduced to the Earth Charter at the technical college for social welfare of the deaconesses Speyer/Mannheim in the last two years.

More project ideas can be viewed here in german here.

This article was adapted from an article previously published on kita-global.de
“KITA-GLOBAL” is an online platform to collect and share ideas, materials and good practices on Education for Sustainable Development for early childhood educators.