Everyone Has a Piece of the Story

Suggested Citation: Ernst, J., Underwood, C., & Nayquonabe, T. (2023). Everyone Has a Piece of the Story: A Community of Practice Approach for Supporting Early Childhood Educators’ Capacity for Fostering Empathy in Young Children through Nature-Based Early Learning. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, 11(1), 34–62.

Empathy can be a powerful means for positive social change and for caring action toward wildlife and nature. Thus, there is a need for interventions that build the capacity of early childhood educators to support empathy development in young children, given the critical developmental period of early childhood and the relevance of empathy to social-emotional learning, which is an emphasis in early childhood education. This article describes a project that used a Community of Practice (CoP) approach to engage a cohort of 15 regional early childhood professionals in the co-creation of empathy practices that are deepened through a Two Worlds approach. We also offer the results of our shared learning, including the co-constructed practices for infusing empathy into naturebased early learning and the impact of participation, as well as our reflection on the use of a CoP approach to build organizational and community capacity for supporting empathy.