Silence to story: Mapping water stewardship and relational literacies of early childhood teachers

Early childhood education is increasingly recognized as a critical site for climate learning, yet there is a need for further exploration around how educators introduce ecological responsibility in developmentally meaningful and emotionally attuned ways. This qualitative multi-case study examines how three preschool teachers engaged young children in water-centered storytelling and inquiry as an entry point into climate literacy. Drawing on narrative cartography and a justice-oriented climate storytelling framework, the study traces how teachers described and navigated pedagogical decisions related to ecological care, responsibility, and action over time. Data sources included teacher reflections, classroom artifacts, and semi-structured interviews. Findings illustrate how teachers mapped distinct yet interconnected pedagogical pathways into climate responsibility through embodied experiences, place-based stewardship, and narrative identity. Across cases, teachers’ approaches to ecological learning emerged as a relational and non-linear process shaped by their ethical and affective labor, including decisions about pacing, framing, and holding complexity. Environmental grief and systemic harm were often mediated or held by teachers. This study contributes to early childhood and environmental education scholarship by making visible the often-invisible pedagogical work involved in justice-oriented climate teaching and by offering narrative cartography as a generative approach for understanding how ecological responsibility is introduced, sustained, and transformed in early learning spaces by teachers.