Early Childhood
Nature Connections Toolkit
Get started! Bring nature’s benefits to young children in your city.
Many cities are eager to find ways to bring nature’s benefits to young children where they live, play and learn. They understand the research: providing young children, ages 0 – 5, with regular access to nature improves physical and mental health, develops social-emotional skills and better prepares children for school. The tools and resources compiled below help cities and partners achieve these goals with a particular focus on equity so all children regardless of race or income have access to nature’s benefits.
Many of these resources were gathered from a national landscape scan that looked at ways cities are currently connecting young children to green spaces. These strategies also help cities achieve a number of other city goals including parks expansion, early childcare enhancements, equity and more.
Early Childhood Nature Connection Pathways
Additional efforts that support more equitable early childhood nature connection across all pathways:
- Aligning state child care licensing requirements and quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS)
- Professional development for staff of early childhood programs
- Engaging families and caregivers to support early childhood nature connection
Case Studies
Case studies give an introduction to how some cities achieved their goals around early childhood nature connection. It features city examples from San Francisco, CA, Austin, TX, and Madison, WI to name a few.
Research for Early Childhood Nature Connection
Annotated bibliography of research compiles studies that show the benefits of early childhood nature connection. The research digest is a condensed version of the bibliography.
Benefits of Early Childhood Nature Connection Infographic
Infographic one-pager helps visually explain the research-backed benefits to young children from regular time outdoors. It can be used to help make the case for early childhood nature connection strategies.
Pathways to Early Childhood Nature Connections
Cities Connecting Children to Nature (CCCN) completed a national landscape scan to evaluate how cities are currently bringing nature’s benefits to young children. That landscape scan provided the following promising practices, which CCCN has called pathways. The overview of pathways document explains how the pathways work together.
Equity Mapping: Young Children & Nature
Nature equity maps depict how natural green space appears in a city relative to key demographic, economic, and social vulnerability data. This toolkit outlines the process cities can take to create their own maps.
More Resources
This toolkit was made possible by:
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