Learn how to raise an environmentally conscious child to care about the environment without guilt or dread using these environment activities for kindergarten children.
Before I became a full-time “peasant,” I was an environmental educator, tasked with instilling nature stewardship in young minds. My boss gave me benchmarks for my nature hikes and stream surveys: “Educate students about river pollution,” “Inform students of regional endangered species,” or “Equip students to understand recycling.” While I did my utmost to engage with my young tag-alongs and give them an outdoor adventure, I noticed a disturbing trend. When the kids talked about their own relationships with nature, they were full of guilt and fear.
Through the unrelenting stream of information now available in the modern age, the kids’ young minds were too swiftly saddled with the knowledge of deforestation, escalated weather reports, forest fires, extinct species, polluted waterways, and grave-faced celebrities telling them to “do better.” Well-meaning but heavy-handed programs laid these big, scary problems at their feet, and then offered little recourse for tiny hands. After participating in classes like this for years, I can confidently report that the result of such teaching was often little more than helplessness, a sprinkle of self-loathing, and continued disconnect from nature.
I’d like to advocate for a different approach. Rather than scaring kids, we need to use fun, adventure, discovery, and locally connected efforts to truly educate children about their world. Here are some proposed fixes to missteps I’ve observed in environmental education.
How to Raise an Environmentally Conscious Child: Course Corrections
Error No. 1: Introducing problems kids can’t directly sense. Melting polar ice caps, carbon dioxide emissions, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are scary-sounding problems, but for young minds, they’re too physically distant to feel real. As I observed with a first grader who said her biggest fear was global warming, these intangible issues become mythological entities, occupying the same psychological space as storybook monsters or nightmares.
Solution No. 1: Create developmentally appropriate topics. Young children just can’t comprehend the magnitude of world-sized problems. According to psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, children only start developing basic problem-solving and decision-making capabilities around 12 years old. Before then, they’re likely not ready or capable.
Avoid delving into big issues, accept innocent ignorance, and inspire curiosity and wonder about the natural world. Don’t inform 6-year-olds that industrial waste poisons their waterways if they can’t comprehend “industrial waste” in the first place. Instead, get a group of first graders excited about finding tadpoles and frogs in those waterways. Not only will this be an enjoyable activity, but it’ll also help foster a love for the environment around them.
Error No. 2: Making solutions inaccessible. As a ’90s kid, I was saddled with my generation’s litany of environmental disasters. Teachers told me about holes in the ozone layer and burning rainforests, but their “solutions” rang hollow. Write a letter to my representative? Use both sides of the paper? None of that sounded like it could actually make a difference. I knew, despite my teachers’ affirmations, that a kid like me was powerless to clean a whole ocean or stop deforestation. Kids today quickly realize the same truth, and either anxiety or apathy can follow.
Solution No. 2: Address problems at a local level. Research and delve into the issues in your own community, whether it’s trash-filled rivers, deer overpopulation, or invasive garlic mustard. Then, determine how you can get involved and, best of all, make an impact that’s observable.
Error No. 3: Nothing touches home. During a weeklong stay at our local nature center, the kids with me learned about low-impact development, built models of eco-friendly buildings out of recycled materials, and prepared to present their designs to their school. I visited the school afterward and glimpsed the dumpsters on the way in – loaded with their discarded creations. Everything I taught them had stayed in “field trip land,” and the models were landfill fodder.
Solution No. 3: Invest at the family level. Visiting educators and nature demonstrations are interesting, but unless positive environmental influence happens in a kid’s daily life at home, it probably won’t mean much. Talk all you want about “caring for the environment,” but unless you live it, kids will mimic your actions rather than your words.
Environment Activities for Kindergarten
Let’s explore some activities to connect families with their environment in a natural, appropriate, local way. All of these ideas can grow into more serious discussions once your kiddos are ready for them.
- Start a “kid garden.” If you have garden space accessible, partition off a section for the kids to plant and tend. With plants to care for, kids get more connected to weather events, rejoicing when it rains and hurrying out with buckets during drought. Weeds, pests, pollinators, and beneficial predators become allies and enemies in their adventures. And, best of all, a harvested tomato or radish gives real satisfaction for their efforts.
![Closeup of green moss with white pixie-cup lichen.]()
- String up a “weed line” for the birds. As any naturalist can confirm, kids are usually interested in animal scat. Take advantage of that curiosity by setting up a narrow raised bed and stringing a stout clothesline above it. As birds land on it, they’ll drop seed-filled droppings into the soil below, and you’ll soon have a “wild-planted” garden full of native and invasive plants that are moved about by birds. Get out a field guide and see what the birds have been feasting on and how it affects local plant populations. (And identify the birds as well!)
- Play a bird-watching game. With a set of binoculars and a bird field guide, the skies – and the “weed line” you created – can open up as a treasure hunt for different species. Assign individual points for each species spotted, or make it a collective effort. Explore different areas – the creek at the park will have different birds than the feeder in your backyard – and keep a sharp eye on the sky during spring and fall migrations. You could even participate in The Big Sit, a challenge to identify as many birds as you can in one day while staying within a 17-foot diameter.
- Go hunting, fishing, and foraging. I know of few people more in tune with local environments than the responsible fishers, hunters, and foragers who live there. When your very sustenance comes from the bounties of the fields, forests, and waterways, you connect with it in a visceral, personal, unforced way. The desire to protect and care for what you love naturally follows.
![A hand reaches out and picks a handful of small, bright-red wild]()
- Take a hike. Many state and city parks have a yearly or seasonal hiking spree to get folks exploring paths they usually don’t take. In addition to the adventure, sprees usually come with hiking sticks and yearly badges to collect, which certainly add to the kid appeal.
Vision for the Next Generation
The messages I swallowed as a youngster were pretty dour: “We do bad stuff to nature. Humans are bad.” The messages I was trained to teach as an environmental educator weren’t much lighter: “Nature is being destroyed. You need to fix it, and then leave it alone.” Now, I see things in a far different light, and it’s summarized simply: “Humans create change.” We have to decide, of course, what kind of change we want to make.
Though it’s a big, lifelong project to undertake, giving children the opportunity to connect with their natural surroundings is a whole lot better than yelling at them to put down their phones and go play in the yard. Cultivate a desire to value the animals, plants, and waterways they share space with. And it’s that deep-seated, positive relationship – not guilt or fear – that’ll lead them to care for it as they grow into change-making adults.
Wren Everett and her husband quit their teaching jobs and moved their family to 12 acres in the Ozarks, where they’re establishing their dream of a self-sufficient, off-grid property.
