Teaching Sustainable Practices as Part of a Holistic Education in the Saudi Context

The need for humans to take responsible actions to sustain a sufficiently resourced world for younger generations has become an important issue. Caring about our children’s future lives can be best supported through providing high quality education that encourages children to positively engage in creating a sustainable future. Transformative teaching advocates for a positive change in the world and fits well with the principals of sustainable development. Among many approaches to educating young children, using developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) involves children in reflective decision-making and and can encourage them to take actions for a sustainable society. As DAP relies on three core considerations of age, individual, and cultural appropriateness (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009), the suitability of a set of practices is relative to different situations, cultures, and belief systems. As part of bridging cultural differences among early childhood education and the global community, this paper will shed a light on an example of focusing on sand and water as part of a Saudi Arabian experience of educating young children.