You may think that preschoolers are too young to learn about environmental conservation and sustainability. But it’s actually the perfect age.

If you’ve ever sat and watched young children playing outside, you know how kids just seem to have an innate connection to nature. They’re fascinated by the clouds in the sky, the dandelions in a field, the bugs crawling in the dirt.

Environmental education for kids builds on their natural interest, encouraging their curiosity and helping them grow into adults who consider the environmental in everything they do. For this activity, we talked about pollution and how it affects ocean life.

To tie this in with our shark theme, we decided to both create and then “clean up” shark bay. Students were first presented with a sensory table full of “dirty” water and “trash”.

They were given nets, recycling bin, and a trash bin to remove the trash.

Following this, students were presented with a sensory table full of clean water, abundant with sea life. Lastly, we had a discussion about why it is so important to throw our trash away in trash cans.