Empowering Children to Address Climate Change... One Caterpillar at a Time
Educating Young Children in a Changing Climate: Impacts on Programs and Practices
“ But What About the Butterflies?”
Empowering Children to Address Climate Change... One Caterpillar at a Time
Rina Zampieron and Jennifer Feller
Editors’ Note: As outlined by Victoria Carr and colleagues in“ Connection, Curiosity, and Care: An E-STEM Approach to Climate Change Education in Early Childhood,” authentic experiences in nature spark children’ s curiosity to learn about and care for the environment. In the following practitioner reflection, Rina Zampieron and Jennifer Fuller build upon these ideas. Preschoolers’ discovery of caterpillars on their school grounds sparked an investigation of monarch butterflies, which led to children’ s questions about why the monarch population is declining. The authors share how conversations and inquiry-based work rooted in the local environment extended children’ s knowledge about invasive species, one of the effects of climate change.
34 Young Children
Winter 2025