How does identifying relationships between study objects in Kindergarten lead to competencies in defining sustainability and quality of life?

Students in Kindergarten learn about quality of life, but very few of the prescribed learning outcomes that would help them define sustainability address relationships between study objects (and encourage systems thinking).

In Health and Careers education, students learn to “differentiate between positive and negative behaviours in relationships”. This is a prerequisite skill to being able create quality living conditions or to recognize the requirements of healthy human and natural living systems. A teacher might ask students for suggestions about how to improve the conditions of the classroom, such as adding living plants to the classroom. Students also might investigate how much better they treat other people (and plants, animals) when they are in a good mood/treated well by their peers.

In Mathematics, students are learning to value things along a linear scale when they “say the number sequence by 1s starting anywhere from 1 to 10 and from 10 to 1”. Students need a basic understanding of number in order to evaluate quality and changes to it over time or between places. Students also need this kind of understanding of number in order to understand the order/strength of a relationship between different nodes in a system. Using temperature as an example, the teacher might have students look at the temperature in a fish tank and relate it to whether the water is becoming scummy or not or notice which animals they see outside on cold days.

Kindergarten students explore aesthetic characteristics of human life. For example, they “demonstrate an awareness that particular images have personal value”, “identify aspects of a dramatic work that evoke a response”, “demonstrate an awareness of a variety of purposes for music”, “suggest purposes for a variety of images”. Students might aquire subconscious awareness that quality of aesthetic experiences is better than quantity and that such practices need not require the destruction of living systems. Students might also explore how humans use these media to express ideas or thoughts about the natural environment and to promote sustainable practices.