ABSTRACT

This chapter outlines a project incorporating digital tools to document and share ideas about sustainability with Swedish preschool children. In this chapter, the preschool teachers, Ulrika and Linda, share their narrative about the potential of the intersections between digital technologies and sustainability with young children. The project began with the question: “How do you involve children in promoting sustainable development approaches in the preschool?” The teachers employed a children’s picture storybook The School for Waste Collection with Jonny and Antti (Dahlin, 2006) that inspired both the children and teachers to begin a shared sustainability project about waste. The children offered suggestions about how to implement the project and initially decided to send hand-written letters to their parents with instructions to bring “old” things to preschool. As they explored the collated old or reusable materials, the children’s imaginations and creativity extended; also, there were many conversations about the environment and sustainable development reflecting UNESCO’s dimensions of sustainability (n.d.). For example, they discussed saving natural resources (ecological sustainability), saving money by not buying new materials (economic sustainability) and working together to create a strong collective approach (social sustainability). As the project evolved, a co-constructed narrative emerged that the teachers and children documented using digital tools. Both text and images were collated on an iPad and computer, thus creating productive intersections between digital tools and sustainability. Towards the semester end, the children sought ways to share their work with families and employed digital tools to create a movie. Informed by social constructionism (Vygotsky, 1978), images of children as active social participants (Corsaro, 2005) and curriculum goals (The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018) the teachers reflected on how they had invited the children’s thoughts, ideas and questions to steer the project.