Environmental and Climate Awareness Education in the Early Years: Building Sustainable Futures through Education
Tarih: Date
Environmental and Climate Awareness Education in the Early Years: Building Sustainable Futures through Education
Addressing climate change is not only a matter of future policies; it is also a fundamental concern for education today. The foundations of environmental awareness, relationships with nature, and the knowledge, skills, and values needed for a sustainable future begin to develop in the early years.
Organised within the framework of COP31, the international online panel “Environmental and Climate Awareness Education in the Early Years: Building Sustainable Futures through Education” will bring together academics from different countries to explore how environmental and climate education can become more holistic, participatory, and action-oriented, beginning in the early years and extending across educational contexts.
Aligned with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the panel is particularly framed by SDG 4 – Quality Education and SDG 13 – Climate Action, with particular attention to Target 4.7, which emphasises the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, and Target 13.3, which calls for strengthened education, awareness-raising, and capacity building on climate change.
Bringing together five academics from Australia, Türkiye, the United States, and Germany, the panel will offer complementary perspectives spanning children’s relationships with nature and the more-than-human world, nature-based education, systems literacy, young people’s voices in climate change education, and the place of climate literacy within curricula.
Dr Jane Merewether – Murdoch University, Australia
Learning within Lively Worlds: Animacy and Climate Education in the Early Years
Dr Fatma Yalçın – TED University, Türkiye
Growing with Nature: Nature-Based Education as a Foundation for Climate Awareness
Dr Sinem Demirci – Cal Poly University, California, USA
Nurturing Systems Literacy for a Changing Climate
Dr Güliz Karaarslan Semiz – University of Vechta, Germany
Climate Change Education: Giving Voice to Young People
Dr Mehmet Şen – TED University, Türkiye
From Curriculum to Climate Literacy: Rethinking Environmental Education in Türkiye
Bringing together five perspectives from different educational and cultural contexts, the panel warmly invites academics, researchers, teachers, pre-service teachers, graduate students, and all education stakeholders interested in sustainability, climate education, and early childhood education to join this international conversation.
📅 Monday, 14 September 2026
🕙 10:00 Türkiye (GMT+3)
💻 Online: https://tedu.zoom.us/s/96965338930
For a greener, fairer, and more sustainable future, education starts in the early years.