Young Children and the Environment


Book Description

This is an essential text for students, teachers and practitioners in a range of early childhood education and care settings.




Children and the Environment


Book Description

In the first two volumes of the series we elected to cover a broad spectrum of topics in the environment and behavior field, ranging from theoretical to applied, and including disciplinary, interdiscipli nary, and professionally related topics. Chapters in these earlier vol umes dealt with leisure and recreation, the elderly, personal space, aesthetics, energy, behavioral approaches to environmental problems, methodological issues, social indicators, industrial settings, and the like. Chapters were written by psychologists, sociologists, geogra phers, and other social scientists, and by authors from professional design fields such as urban planning, operations research, landscape architecture, and so on. Our goal in these first two volumes was to present a sampling of areas in the emerging environment and behavior field and to give readers some insight into the diversity of research and theoretical perspectives that characterize the field. Beginning with the present volume, our efforts will be directed at a series of thematic volumes. The present collection of chapters is focused on children and the environment, and, as much as possible, we invited contributions that reflect a variety of theoretical and em pirical perspectives on this topic. The next volume in the series, now in preparation, will address the area of "culture and the environment. " Suggestions for possible future topics are welcome. Irwin Altman Joachim F.




Environment and Children


Book Description

How does the built environment affect children - their health, their behaviour, education and development? To support them, what do we need to consider and what do we need to do? Can our surroundings foster environmental and social awareness and responsibility? Based on Christopher Day's experiences designing schools and early childhood centres in the United States and Britain, this groundbreaking book sets out to answer these questions and to offer solutions. Children all too often find themselves living in alien surroundings designed with the needs of adults in mind, cut off not just from the natural environment but also childhood itself. Society's reaction - to cocoon children from the outside world or to resort to drugs to control behaviour - fails to address the fundamental causes of problems which lie in the environment not the children themselves. One of the world's leading thinkers on the impact of buildings on people, Christopher Day's insights offer new light on one of the most important issues for today's society.




Nurturing Nature and the Environment with Young Children


Book Description

This book responds to a growing interest among early childhood professionals and scholars for more nature and sustainability focused programs. Doing so rewards the reader with opportunities to critically reflect on their own practice and explore new pedagogical pathways. It will be essential reading for practitioners and scholars alike.




Hands-on Nature


Book Description

This long-awaited revision of a popular book provides information and activities to assist educators and parents in exploring the local environment with children. Fact-filled essays introduce each subject, followed by field-tested, experiential activities that engage students in learning about the natural world. 115 illustrations.




Spaces for Children


Book Description

As a developmental psychologist with a strong interest in children's re sponse to the physical environment, I take particular pleasure in writing a foreword to the present volume. It provides impressive evidence of the con cern that workers in environmental psychology and environmental design are displaying for the child as a user of the designed environment and indi cates a recognition of the need to apply theory and findings from develop mental and environmental psychology to the design of environments for children. This seems to me to mark a shift in focus and concern from the earlier days of the interaction between environmental designers and psy chologists that occurred some two decades ago and provided the impetus for the establishment of environmental psychology as a subdiscipline. Whether because children-though they are consumers of designed environments are not the architect's clients or because it seemed easier to work with adults who could be asked to make ratings of environmental spaces and comment on them at length, a focus on the child in interaction with en vironments was comparatively slow in developing in the field of environ ment and behavior. As the chapters of the present volume indicate, that situation is no longer true today, and this is a change that all concerned with the well-being and optimal functioning of children will welcome.




The Environment for Children


Book Description

Each year, millions of children die of environmental causes and many more suffer serious illness or injury. Children are often the most vulnerable to the condition of their environment -and their health is an index of its quality - but their wellbeing is rarely given priority by governments or aid agencies. Ironically, the problems can be traced back to matters which can be treated straightforwardly and at relatively low cost - poor drinking water or food, or infectious diseases which can be controlled. This book gives a multidisciplinary account of the environmental health hazards threatening children and the range of impacts they can have. It also explains what can be done, by communities as well as governments and aid workers, to provide safe and healthy environments for children. The book looks at conditions in a range of cities in the developing world, as well as pollutants and other health problems affecting children in the North. Published in association with UNICEF, and written by some of the same authors as Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, 1993), this provides excellent course material, and will be useful for practitioners working on child development, infant and maternal health, environmental health and community development. David Satterthwaite is Director of the Human Settlements Programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development, and principal author of Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (1993) and Squatter Citizen(1989).




Children, Citizenship and Environment


Book Description

In this significantly revised second edition of Bronwyn Hayward’s acclaimed book Children Citizenship and Environment, she examines how students, with teachers, parents, and other activists, can learn to take effective action to confront the complex drivers of the current climate crisis including: economic and social injustice, colonialism and racism. The global school strikes demand adults, governments, and businesses take far-reaching action in response to our climate crisis. The school strikes also remind us why this important youthful activism urgently needs the support of all generations. The #SchoolStrike edition of Children Citizenship and Environment includes all new contributions by youth, indigenous and disability activists, researchers and educators: Raven Cretney, Mehedi Hasan, Sylvia Nissen, Jocelyn Papprill, Kate Prendergast, Kera Sherwood O’ Regan, Mia Sutherland, Amanda Thomas, Sara Tolbert, Sarah Thomson, Josiah Tualamali'i, and Amelia Woods. As controversial, yet ultimately hopeful, as it was when first published, Bronwyn Hayward develops her ‘SEEDS’ model of ‘strong ecological citizenship’ for a school strike generation. The SEEDS of citizenship education encourage students to develop skills for; Social agency, Environmental education, Embedded justice, Decentred deliberation and Self-transcendence. This approach to citizenship supports young citizens’ democratic imagination and develops their ‘handprint’ for social justice. This ground-breaking book will be of interest to a wide audience, in particular teachers and professionals who work in Environmental Citizenship Education, as well as students and community activists with an interest in environmental change, democracy and intergenerational justice.




America's Children and the Environment


Book Description

"America's Children and the Environment (ACE)" is EPA's report presenting data on children's environmental health. ACE brings together information from a variety of sources to provide national indicators in the following areas: Environments and Contaminants, Biomonitoring, and Health. Environments and Contaminants indicators describe conditions in the environment, such as levels of air pollution. Biomonitoring indicators include contaminants measured in the bodies of children and women of child-bearing age, such as children's blood lead levels. Health indicators report the rates at which selected health outcomes occur among U.S. children, such as the annual percentage of children who currently have asthma. Accompanying each indicator is text discussing the relevance of the issue to children's environmental health and describing the data used in preparing the indicator. Wherever possible, the indicators are based on data sources that are updated in a consistent manner, so that indicator values may be compared over time.




Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8


Book Description

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.