From Santa Claus to sustainability: emergent understanding of concepts and issues in environmental science

Abstract This paper describes part of the preliminary data analysis of a research project entitled ‘Emergent Environmentalism’, funded by the E.S.R.C. It provides a brief overview of the theoretical background of the project as a whole which is concerned with the nature and development of children's early knowledge and awareness of environmental issues. One of the four component studies of the research project, namely ‘Emergent Knowledge of The Environment’, is then described and discussed. This provides data which illuminate the extent to which four‐year‐old children know and understand about four selected environmental issues, the sources of their knowledge and an idea of whether they have any sense of concern for the world in which they are growing up. Examples of concept maps that have been constructed for each subject are provided which demonstrate that pre‐school children may well have a strong base of accurate scientific knowledge upon which early years environmental teaching may build.