Education for sustainable development in preschool

The context for the project was to carry out an in-depth project with two preschools in Finland and two ecological preschools in Sweden. The research questions dealt with how method development is created through educators' reflected practice around teaching for sustainable development in preschool based on a process-based and child-initiated ways of working. The research project had its starting point in a process-based working method based on children's hypotheses about global conditions, climate change, recycling, and sustainability. In the project, four research periods were carried out with observations and collection of field notes, visual material through photographs, and conversations with contact persons and other educators at the participating preschools as described below.

The music preschool Taikatahti in Oulu, Taikatahti preschool in Helsinki and the Taikatahti primary school, grades 1-6, are located in Finland. Taikatahti preschools is an independent preschool and school organisation collaborating with the municipality of Oulu and the University of Oulu.
Taikatahti (in Finnish)

Taikatahti is unique in Finland as they have worked with sustainable development and are Green Flag certified for 20 years. The preschool and primary school's work is inspired by Reggio Emilia's educational philosophy and works consistently based on a cultural profile where teaching is enriched through the use of images and media, music, dance and theatre as educational tools. The preschool's own curriculum follows the Finnish curriculum for preschool and primary school and has been the subject of interest from the Finnish Ministry of Education with its profiling and curriculum.
Liisa Lohilahti, principal

Lustträdgården's preschool, an independent preschool unit located in Ljungskile in Western Sweden, has for a long time worked with a focus on child-initiated working methods where aesthetic learning processes in collaboration with the preschool's kitchen and the staging of creative learning environments are part of the regular activities. The preschool is a coastal preschool that works with permaculture and cultivation in its garden. Another preschool unit, Äppeldalen, and an after-school centre, Gränslandet, have lately been attached to the unit. In all units, work is inspired based on Reggio Emilia's pedagogical philosophy and ecology. The work with ecology and sustainability pervades the activities on an overall level, where the preschools and the leisure centre cooperate with the surrounding community, the local church, and associations with cultivation on an ecological basis. Both preschools and the after-school centre have an art studio, and nature and culture (aesthetics) are combined pedagogically.
Contact person Lisa Petrén

Härryda municipality has invested in ecology and sustainability for a long time through e.g. a municipal recycling centre called ÅterC.
Contact person Siv Jirblom

Tallgården's preschool is also located in Härryda and is a municipal preschool. Tallgården has participated in the project, but due to a change of preschool director, there is currently no contact person.
Tallgården's preschool 

Tarja Karlsson Häikiö (project manager), professor of visual and material culture at HDK-Valand, Academy of Art and Design. She has researched sustainability in the preschool together with Swedish, Finnish and English researchers.
More about Karlsson Häikiö's research and publications

Pernilla Mårtensson, former junior lecturer at the Department of Pedagogy, Communication and Learning at the Faculty of Education and also the Academy of Music and Drama, and HDK-Valand - Academy of Art and Design at the Artistic Faculty. Mårtensson is active as project manager for a network for south-west Sweden in the project Sustainable Future.
Pernilla Mårtensson

The research project included the creation of a network between the participating parties based on the common interest in teaching based on sustainable development. A continuing education day was held between the parties on 18 April 2023, via zoom where, in addition to lectures by Karlsson Häikiö and Mårtensson, each educational unit was given 45 minutes to talk about their work. The day was conducted in English due to language considerations and was offered as free training for the participating preschools.

The preschool teacher training in Helsinki has taken part in the research project through visits made by three teacher educators in Helsinki: Seija Kairavuori, docent, Hannah Kaihovirta, docent, and Hanna Niinistö, lecturer. They were on a study visit at Taikatahti preschool in Helsinki on 25 August 2022. In 2018-2020, Karlsson Häikiö has been an expert for a Nordic Culture Fund-funded research project led by teacher educators at the kindergarten teacher training at the University of Helsinki.
Sustainable Stories in Early Childhood Education and Care (SUSTE)

The Finnish researchers invited Karlsson Häikiö and Lohilahti to present project results at the conference Kasvatustieteen päivät arranged at the University of Oulu on 24-25 November 2022. The presentation Kestävä kävets varaiskasvatussa, esi-ja perusopetussus moninaisuuden merkeissä (Eng. Sustainable development in pre-school and primary school from diverse perspectives) was held by Karlsson Häikiö and Lohilahti on the first day of the conference under the theme sustainable development. The theme of the conference at the University of Oulu was Moniäänisyys kasvatuksen muuttuvassa maailmassa (Eng. Diversity in a changing world of education).
Moniäänisyys kasvatuksen muuttuvassa maailmassa

The theoretical framework for the project was based on previous research in the field of ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) where comparative studies were conducted between Swedish and Finnish preschools with an ecological profile (Karlsson Häikiö, 2020; Karlsson Häikiö, Mårtensson & Lohilahti, 2020). An overall starting point for the project was the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG, Agenda 2030). The previous results show how project-oriented working methods and aesthetic learning processes were used at the compared preschools to increase children's awareness of issues around sustainability. 

More research in the fields of sustainability, early childhood education, art education and children's and youth culture can be found below:

Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2021). Att vara vid sina sinnen. Klerfelt, Anna & Qvarsell, Birgitta (red): Kultur, estetik och barns rätt i pedagogiken (s. 105-147). 2 upplagan. Antologi. Malmö: Gleerups förlag.

*Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2020). Aesthetic practice as part of work with sustainability, participation and environment – Examples from Finnish and Swedish preschool. Nordic Studies in Education, 40(4), 343–361. Issue April 2020. Åbo Academy.

Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2020). Föräldrasamverkan i förskolan – ett samverkansprojekt för deltagande och social inkludering. I: M. Asplund-Carlsson, T. Karlsson Häikiö & J. Sundhall (Red.). En lag för barn; Kulturvetenskapliga perspektiv på barnrättskonventionen. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

*Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2020). Reflections on sustainability and use of materials in aesthetic learning processes in early childhood education. Techne Series A: 27(2), 15–30. NordFo Journal.

*McLeod, N., Karlsson Häikiö, T. & Mårtensson, P. (2019). Hope for the Future: New Possibilities for Sustaining a Reflexive Approach. In: N. McLeod & P. Giardiello (Eds.). Empowering Early Childhood Educators: International Pedagogies as Provocation. Routledge: London.

*McLeod, N. & Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2019). Democracy and Participation in Early Childhood Education. In: N. McLeod & P. Giardiello (Eds.). Empowering Early Childhood Educators: International Pedagogies as Provocation. Routledge: London.

*Giardiello, P. & Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2019). Reggio Emilia (with Perspectives from Sweden). In: N. McLeod & P. Giardiello (Eds.). Empowering Early Childhood Educators: International Pedagogies as Provocation. Routledge: London.

*Giardiello, P., Karlsson Häikiö, T., Härkönen, U., Lohilahti, L. & McLeod, N. (2019). A Finnish Perspective of Early Childhood Education. In: N. McLeod & P. Giardiello (Eds.). Empowering Early Childhood Educators: International Pedagogies as Provocation. Routledge: London.

*Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2018). Aesthetic activities and art-based projects as cultural tools. Jokela, T. & Coutts, G. (Eds.). Relate North: Sustainable Arts and Design in the Arctic and the North (p. 52-78). Rovaniemi: Lapland University Press.