"Nature and Us" ESD Center
Early Childhood Education for Sustainable Development
Education for sustainable development: from theory to practice
The educational center "Nature and Us" (currently Russian-based) designs and develops teaching methods and programs to help young children understand ideas of sustainable development and deal with environmental, economic and social challenges they might face when they'll become adults.
We're applying academic approach to natural science and pedagogy and our professional experience in wildlife as basis for practical teaching. Our recommendations and teaching techniques are simple and easy to put into practice, but at the same time they are systematic and profound. Complex scientific concepts are adapted to early age through play, experiments, applied arts, fairy-tales etc.
Who we are
We are a team and a family, professionally involved in education, with background in pedagogics, natural and social sciences. We've set up this center for education for sustainable development (ESD) to spread ideas and share teaching techniques that have been used over a decade in many preschool institutions. And of course we use the same principles in everyday life, bringing up our own children.
Maybe our experience may inspire your own ideas: see our section on family ESD.
Education for sustainable development starts in the family
We are eagerly sharing our experience worldwide. Here you can find our pictures, impressions and reports from international conferences, visits and other events.
Who can benefit from our ideas
Our experience can be useful for teachers, university students, academic researchers, parents, children, and any persons interested in ESD.
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If you want to take a quick glance at ESD, see our short video here.
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If you want to learn more about education for sustainable development worldwide, see sections International projects and Documents.
There you'll find objectives of ESD, set by UN, definitions and basic principles along with some worldwide projects.
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If you want to find inspiration and new ideas for your ESD teaching practice, see the sections “Program” here and “Teaching resources”.
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If you want to browse through the pictures from kindergartens in different countries and memories from international conferences, look here.
Click on the pictures below to see photos of kindergartens in different countries
What we can offer you
Online teaching resources
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Books, programs, guidelines for teachers, practical techniques, educational videos, photo presentations, fairy tales, and more.
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Here you can find some online materials, with more teaching resources available soon.
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Teacher training
Teacher training sessions and seminars, descriptions of which can be found here.
You can ask us any questions or give us your suggestions about things we can do together in the field of ESD
Promoting ESD ideas worldwide
For the last 8 years we've been actively participating in international OMEP* assemblies and conferences in different parts of the world. Every year we present our projects at the Green Cross conferences.
The ideas and practices we share with the teaching community worldwide have been implemented by kindergartens participating in the OMEP ESD Project since 2010 and Comenius Project "What is Europe" since 2012 and other projects.
*OMEP is the international, non-governmental and non-profit organization with Consultative Status at the United Nations and UNESCO for promoting rights of children to education and care.
The program "Our Home Is Nature" is a comprehensive teaching program that has been developed for more than 10 years. It is the core of our methodology.
Here you can find videos that tell about project carried out in kindergartens, previews of professional films that can be used as teaching guidelines, slideshows, posters, books and more.
Many of them are free access, some have limited access only and will be available soon.
This page tells more about our seminars and training programs with slideshows and some videos from the seminars.