Improving preschool children’s understanding of water pollution through experiential learning

Water pollution is a major environmental challenge with important implications for sustainability, public health, and environmental education. This study explored how an experiential learning program was associated with preschool children’s understanding of water pollution in a developmentally appropriate way. The study was conducted over a two-week period in a public kindergarten in Greece and involved 18 children aged 4 to 6 years. The intervention was integrated into the regular curriculum and engaged children in observation, experimentation, guided discussion, artistic expression, and interactive learning activities designed to support exploration of the causes, consequences, and prevention of water pollution. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews before and after the intervention and were analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis. The findings showed a clear shift in the children’s responses following the program, with post-intervention answers becoming more relevant, coherent, and conceptually organized. The children more often identified water pollution as a human-caused problem, referred to consequences for marine life and people, and suggested practical actions for prevention. These findings suggest that experiential and developmentally appropriate environmental education may support preschool children in forming early understandings of a complex environmental issue and in beginning to express emerging forms of environmental awareness and responsibility.