Education for sustainability is not something that we normally attribute to early childhood learning but one New Zealand company is looking to change that.

Map, a sustainability consultancy is working with local community and education groups to develop a program that teaches children from the ages of five and up how to be sustainable today and for the rest of their lives. The program due to be trialled in New Zealand schools this year will develop a year on year curriculum that will teach students both the values of sustainable development but the skills that they will need to face the challenges of our next generation.

FreshEd, the working title of the project, has been designed to specifically fit into the current education curriculum to fill the education gap which the growing awareness of sustainable issues is creating for students. Focusing on areas of social and environmental sustainability the project goal is to develop an in class, curriculum based programme aimed at creating a thorough awareness for school students of the core elements of sustainability. In developing year on year students will develop a skill set which they can use to tackle global issues in the future. Even now in the early stages of the project the developers are creating a framework to implement this project not just in New Zealand but also internationally.

Director of Map Consulting Scott Whitaker states that the project “looks to develop sustainable economies for the future by educating the future world leaders”.