Exploring ecosystem relationships through story, play, and design: a pilot environmental literacy program at MacEwan University

Abstract

Early childhood provides an important opportunity to support children's understanding of the relationships between plants, animals, and humans. This presentation describes a pilot environmental literacy and play program at MacEwan University. Informed by the One Health approach, this program teaches children to recognize the interconnected health of each element in an ecosystem. The program was designed for children ages 3-6 and incorporated four connected learning experiences: a pre-program interview, an interactive StoryWalk focused on ecosystem relationships, an exploration of flowers and pollinators, and a play activity in which children collaboratively constructed ecosystems. Across these experiences, children were encouraged to identify relationships among living and non-living ecosystems and consider how changes to one component may impact others.

The program explored how participation in interactive environmental literacy and play experiences influence children's understanding of environmental relationships, systems thinking, and sustainable practices. Children's learning was documented through audio and video recordings, as well as drawings. This presentation describes the program's design, implementation, approaches to data coding, and preliminary observations. The project highlights the potential of play-based experiences for teaching environmental literacy to young children, and offers insight into how One Health principles may be introduced in early childhood curricula.