Environmental sustainability in the nursery

Abstract

It is the responsibility of early childhood educators to make sustainability education a part of everyday practice in the nursery. Education for sustainability enables educators and children to promote responsibility, respect the natural environment, and be active participants in the opportunities offered by everyday life. The field of our research is the monitoring of the implementation of environmental sustainability in the nursery, based on the judgment of the university students. We processed the data of 242 students at ELTE TÓK, the Faculty of Early Years Education at the ELTE University of Budapest. In the present study, we focus on the following two research topics: which elements of environmental education do early childhood educators incorporate into their daily nursing practice; and we examined the role of health education in the work of the institution. The statements were judged on the fivepoint Likert scale. Based on the evaluation of the results, the issue of environmental sustainability appears to be firmly established in the life of nursery institutions.