Children’s Concepts of the Environment: An Opportunity for Environmental Education as a Tool for Sustainability in Botswana Preschools

The role of environmental education as a vehicle for sustainability in Early Childhood Education is an under researched area in the global south, when compared with the global north. In spite of the fragmented approaches that have been used globally, and recent initiatives by UNESCO through its advocacy, there is very little evidence of action in this area in African countries like Botswana. Specifically, research and theorising to support advocacy and uptake of environmental education as a tool for Sustainable Education in early childhood is lacking or emergent, at best. For the preschool child as a learner who has the right to be involved in issues that concern life here, now and in the future, this research draws on a global research where young children have been shown to possess knowledge about the earth, clear thoughts about environmental issues, the responsibility people carry, and ideas about what to do about environmental issues. It is imperative to contextualize knowledge, thoughts, and ideas in varying specific contexts, such as in Botswana, where culturally, voices of children have quite often been stifled. Henceforth, this research sought to highlight preschool children's concepts about the environment, specifically through their expressions on the state of the environment in Botswana. Botswana preschool children's comments on the state of the environment were solicited using a baseline scan of a picture of the globe drawn from OMEP's global research showing young children cleaning the earth. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the research considers how these children's interpretations are influenced by their contextual discourses emanating from their conceptions of their environment and experiences. The research further revealed that when given the opportunity to talk freely about what they saw in the picture and their interpretations of the image, the children's concepts provided a good basis for understanding their experiences relating to the state of the environment in their local contexts. The concepts that they hold can give cues about strategies that can be employed to integrate environmental education as a tool for sustainability education to meet the 2030 ESD agenda in Botswana's pre-school education.