Stories & Strategies

Suggested Citation: Underwood, C. (2023) "Stories and Strategies: Strengthening Empathy in Early Childhood and Beyond," Natural Start Alliance Annual Conference. Virtual Workshop. 

This session was presented virtually at the 2023 Natural Start Conference.

Empathy is a timely and meaningful characteristic our world needs, and early childhood is considered an important period for nurturing empathy.  Building upon research finding nature preschools to be an effective mechanism for supporting empathy in early childhood (Ernst et al., 2022), this session shares insights from a qualitative inquiry exploring what strategies and approaches nature preschools utilize to develop empathy in their students. Moving from theory to practice, empathy strategies will be brought to life using storytelling and real examples from nature preschools. Participants will leave with a deepened understanding of what empathy looks like in early childhood, unexpected connections and opportunities to support empathy revealed,  and a toolbox of empathy strategies to embed within their ongoing nature-based teaching practice.