Environmental education based on life experiences should begin during the very earliest years of life. Because young children learn about the environment by interacting with it, educators and other adults must attend to the frequency, nature, and quality of child-environment interactions during the early years.
Many young children have limited opportunities for such experiences.
Yet, it's not just children living in urban areas who should be targeted for environmental education during their preschool years. Many young children, regardless of where they live, spend most of their time in settings and activities that keep them essentially isolated from direct contact with the natural world. Attention to environmental education at the early childhood level is proposed as a partial antidote to this concern. Children who are close to nature tend to relate to it as a source of wonder, joy, and awe. According to Cobb, it is through wonder that we come to know the world.