Teaching the language of caring for our planet.
Earth Friends is a first-of-its-kind integrated framework for teaching environmental education for children as young as 3 and as old as 8.
Earth is our home.
All life on our planet matters.
The youngest generation can rewrite the story of disconnection, distraction, and our diminishing natural world, yet environmental awareness remains largely absent from early childhood schools, centers, and communities.
Imagine the possibilities if adults created an environment where young children grow to love the world around them and gave them the opportunity to make the connections that convenience and culture have stolen from us?
Earth Friends has created the first integrated framework for teaching environmental education to young children. Through our organization we offer professional development, classroom lessons and activities, community, resources, and support.
The Earth Friends Program aligns with current standards & follows best practices in early childhood education.
The Earth Friends lessons have shown the children how important and interconnected the work they are doing is—and when they pick and then eat the harvests from our garden, they reap the tangible benefits.
the program
The Earth Friends Program aligns with ECE standards as set by NAEYC for children ages 3-8 and NJ K-12 Climate Change Education Standards. The program follows the NAAEE's "Guidelines for Excellence in Early Childhood Environmental Education." It has been reviewed by experts in ECE and piloted for two years.
The Earth Friends Program:
takes a universal design learning (UDL) approach
follows developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)
implements social emotional learning (SEL)
the content
The content integrates into current curricula and school year routines through 25 lessons, 50+ activities for teachers, 50+ activities for families, 5 community events, and 10+ sustainable school integrations. The content is designed to work within the context of a young child’s impact on the world around them (school, home, neighborhood) and within their realm of comprehension. The content integrates across all subject areas and disciplines.
The Earth Friends program is for:
public & private schools (pk-2)
homeschool (ages 3-8)
camp & aftercare (ages 3-8
professional
development
The program includes a 90-min asynchronous professional development training to support the implementation of the program, the use of the Earth Friends Educator portal, and best practices for environmental education in early childhood. We encourage every educator to take the training!
Additional synchronous professional development trainings can be purchased that include:
sustainable school practices and projects
gardening in early childhood classrooms
consistent, manageable, sustainable environmental education in your classroom
creating deeper connections to nature through family and community
*All trainings are virtual. We love to see your faces in person, but we aim to be as Earth-friendly as we can when it comes to travel too!
the donations
Your donation to Earth Friends, a 501(3)(c) nonprofit, contributes to our vision of moving our planet and its people in every direction of good for all beings. Our mission is to empower young children by providing a foundation of education, love, and understanding for our planet and everything it provides us. Every gift supports us in carrying out our values and giving both the children and educators the tools, support, resources, and opportunities they need.
Earth Friends is laying the foundation for interest in green
and sustainable careers.
“It has been clear that it’s easier to teach the hard skills necessary to do the job, but it is incredibly challenging to teach the connection to Earth and the WHY of the work.”
Tiiffany Mrotek, Program Director at SEI
Through both the content and framework of our Earth Friends Program, we are proud to support each of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.
At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.” Learn more here.
