Aistear Blogs

Aistear (2024) presents sustainability as ‘babies, toddlers and young children learning to care for themselves, others and the environment’. This blog explores how sustainability can be practiced through relationships, learning experiences and daily routines. It highlights aspects of care for the environment, along with fairness, equity and respect, showing how educators can empower babies, toddlers and young children to begin to understand and live sustainably.

Choices around sustainability are evident in the values, attitudes, choices and daily practices in each early years setting.  Grounded in Aistear’s view of babies, toddlers and young children as agentic, competent and confident learners, sustainability is a shared practice with them, their educators, families and communities. It is about creating learning environments where fairness, empathy and responsibility are part of daily life, ultimately, supporting babies, toddlers and young children to understand how their actions affect themselves, others and the world around them.

Relationships are central to sustainability – shaping how babies, toddlers and young children learn to care for themselves, for others and for the world around them. Through everyday interactions, they begin to understand various aspects of sustainability. Educators play a vital role in modelling fairness, equity and respect. Everyday learning experiences such as waiting for a turn, helping a friend, or noticing when someone is left out empower babies, toddlers and young children to recognise the importance of treating others with kindness and respect.

These values can be woven into daily routines such as mealtimes, where fairness and equity naturally emerge. Babies can signal when they have had enough to eat or drink, toddlers can serve themselves small portions and return for more if they are still hungry, and young children can help prepare or share food. These moments nurture respect for individual needs, an appreciation of choice and an understanding of the importance of avoiding waste. Equity also means recognising the different needs and strengths of each baby, toddler or young child. By adapting routines and learning experiences, agentic educators show that fairness is not about everyone getting the same, but about everyone getting what they need to thrive.

Partnerships with families and communities offer rich opportunities to model sustainable practices. Families may share habits such as reusing materials, cooking seasonal foods or walking to the setting. Settings can share photos, videos and learning stories showing how sustainability is part of the daily routine – inspiring families to try similar ideas at home.

Connecting with the local community by visiting community gardens, local libraries, or interacting with older neighbours, helps babies, toddlers and young children build empathy and understand that they belong to a wider, interconnected community.  

Sustainable learning environments reflect the rights, needs and interests of babies, toddlers and young children. Some settings may display artwork on hessian-backed displays instead of laminated ones. A water butt might be available to water plants, rinse wellies or fill the water tray. The creative area might be filled with open-ended recycled materials that invite curiosity and exploration. Babies might explore treasure baskets with safe, natural objects like wooden spoons, brushes and fabrics, toddlers can sort containers for recycling and young children may grow herbs or create bug hotels. These carefully planned environments invite babies, toddlers and young children to explore, make choices and meaningfully contribute to sustainability. Guided by a slow relational pedagogy educators are afforded the time and space to model sustainable practice in action. This approach supports babies, toddlers and young children to notice how materials are used and reused and to develop early habits of care and responsibility.

Embedding sustainability can begin with small, thoughtful actions in daily routines. When babies, toddlers and young children see adults - educators, families or community members - caring for the world and those around them by reusing materials, composting food waste or turning off lights, they begin to understand that every choice affects both people and the planet. Simple changes can send powerful messages about sustainable practice. Using cloth bibs and washable wipes instead of disposable ones, choosing natural or recycled materials for learning experiences and displays and being mindful of food sources and seasonality are all meaningful choices. These everyday actions communicate the idea that resources matter and that caring for the environment is closely linked to caring for ourselves and others.

By weaving sustainable practices into relationships, learning experiences and daily routines, educators empower babies, toddlers and young children to see that their voices and choices matter. Through thoughtful learning environments, responsive relationships and meaningful partnerships educators help babies, toddlers and young children understand their connection to people, place and planet.

Read the next blog in our series here.

Read the previous blog in our series here.