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Brief description of the project (general purpose/objectives, number and dates of the meetings, timeline, proposed activities, starting points for discussion selected in each of the meetings, etc.)
The EACH project aimed to foster critical thinking through collaborative practices while introducing digital technologies in the classroom by focusing on climate change issues and environmental awareness more generally. The project was implemented in a Montessori kindergarten, which brings a distinctive pedagogical approach rooted in child autonomy, sensorial exploration, and a prepared environment designed to support self-directed learning. The Montessori method emphasizes deep respect for the child’s thinking processes, encourages freedom within limits, and values observation and reflection, making it particularly receptive to practices such as philosophical dialogue and critical collaboration. In this kindergarten, the EACH project was carried out in three different mixed-age classes. This narrative summary refers to 2 groups of children.
Observations took place between 24th January and 15th April 2025, conducted by Emilia, Julia, Zuzanna, and Paweł and they were supervised by Jarek. The sessions were facilitated by members of the kindergarten team and visiting collaborators, based on a flexible plan responsive to the children's interests and reactions.
Ten weekly sessions were conducted, each lasting between 60 to 90 minutes in each of the three mixed age groups (3/6-year-old). These sessions were led by kindergarten teachers. The sessions were structured around the Philosophy for Children (P4C) methodology, which was well-aligned with the Montessori environment. The children were already accustomed to daily conversations and reflective pauses, and the philosophical prompts.
Nevertheless, while children could articulate environmental behaviours, they sometimes struggled to reflect on how to influence others beyond repeating familiar messages. This suggests a need to include materials in the project portfolio that help bridge the gap between knowledge and action, particularly regarding environmental responsibility.
The presence of external observers was valued by the children, who expressed delight in seeing other people interested in their thinking. The kindergarten staff also created a visual display for parents, showcasing the children's artwork and reflections, while some activities (like caring for planted seeds, care for the environment, care for self) are part of the regular classroom routine in Montessori settings.
Concluding remarks:
How have the children participated? How (if) has their participation changed throughout the sessions?
Across the 20 observed sessions, children engaged in multiple forms of collaborative knowledge construction characteristic of the Montessori and P4C approaches. Their participation was marked by:
Despite moments of distraction, the children consistently demonstrated autonomy in idea generation, collaborative verification, and meaning-making, even in an unstructured natural setting.
What was the role and the activities of the adult/guide/facilitator?
The adult played a facilitator-observer role, marked by the following characteristics:
Overall, the adult operated more as a guide on the side (which is part and parcel of Montessori practice), enabling rather than directing, although with room for increased dialogic support in moments of low verbal engagement.
If different from the practitioner, what role did the class teacher play?
The teachers’ roles included both pedagogical and organizational dimensions:
Occasional changes of teachers did not disrupt the group, suggesting consistent routines and a shared understanding of goals among staff. Nonetheless, stronger pedagogical strategies for deepening emergent ideas (e.g., paraphrasing, extending vocabulary, encouraging peer dialogue) could enhance collaborative knowledge outcomes.
What fostered the collaborative-participative process? Which were the factors impacting on social, critical thinking and meta-cognitive skills?
The collaborative-participative process among the children in the Montessori setting was fostered by a combination of tactile engagement, open-ended material use, freedom of movement, and an emotionally safe atmosphere where spontaneous exploration was encouraged.
A key enabler was the invitation to use large-format sketching and shared materials placed directly on the floor. This physical setup supported natural collaboration — multiple children could gather around a surface at once, comment on each other’s ideas, and make joint decisions (e.g., when a child said, “Let’s draw it here” and others adjusted accordingly). This spatial arrangement removed hierarchical roles and promoted equal participation.
Social skills were evident in how children negotiated space and turn-taking without adult prompting. For example, in one group, the girl who initiated the drawing paused when another child wanted to add something; the shift of control was smooth, and the children continued to build on each other’s ideas, not just their own.
Meta-cognitive development was visible in the way children reflected on their process out loud. A child who was documenting the group’s steps said, “First we built it and then we changed it because it was too flat,” showing emerging awareness of iterative work and cause-effect reasoning.
Critical thinking surfaced when the children evaluated their constructions or drawings against the imagined needs of others. For instance, a boy testing the sensory quality of a material said, “Close your eyes and touch it — can you guess what it is?” This showed early design empathy and problem framing.
The emotional tone also played a vital role. Children often laughed together during prototyping, made silly mistakes without embarrassment, and invited each other to “try it out.” This sense of psychological safety and joy supported risk-taking, openness to feedback, and willingness to adapt.
In sum, what fostered collaboration was not formal planning or adult-guided division of labour, but rather the Montessori-prepared environment, which offered freedom within structure, rich sensorial materials, shared physical space, and time — all of which allowed children’s social, critical, and meta-cognitive skills to emerge in a natural, integrated way.
What might have hindered the collaborative-participative process?
Despite the overall success of the collaboration, some factors impeded full participation. Unequal distribution of roles occurred in some groups, where one person took over (e.g., “the one who draws”) while others became passive observers. In these cases, group dynamics shifted from co-construction to delegation, limiting the potential for shared learning and engagement.
Difficulty in translating ideas across disciplines also caused tension. For instance, pedagogy students sometimes lacked confidence in sketching or explaining spatial designs, while design students struggled to articulate the educational rationale behind certain choices. This led to communication breakdowns and occasionally, disengagement.
Moreover, some students hesitated to intervene in group processes, even when they had doubts about the chosen solution. This reluctance – whether due to politeness, insecurity, or time pressure – prevented richer discussion and limited the group’s ability to reflect critically on its work.
Finally, time constraints and product-oriented pressure occasionally led to premature closure: rather than questioning assumptions or rethinking ideas, students opted to “stick with what we have” in order to move forward. This curtailed deeper collaborative reflection and reduced the space for meta-cognitive engagement.
Have children generated a shared knowledge about environmental issues? What was the process?
Yes, the children began to generate shared knowledge about environmental issues, though in ways that were sensory, embodied, and rooted in imaginative, experiential learning rather than verbal abstraction. The process was non-linear, dialogic, and material-based, consistent with Montessori principles.
The shared knowledge developed not through formal teaching, but through collaborative storytelling, prototyping, and problem-solving that referenced environmental ideas — often symbolically. For instance, in several observations, children included trees, clean water, shelters for animals, and spaces for rest in their designs, indicating a basic awareness of human and non-human needs in a healthy environment.
One child said, “Let’s make a place where it’s always green,” and another added, “With birds that are not scared.” These expressions reflect early ecological thinking, framed in relational and affective terms: nature as a place of safety, beauty, and coexistence. This knowledge was not delivered or instructed but emerged from peer interactions and the shared project goal of designing for others (imagined guests, animals, etc.).
The process of sharing knowledge happened in micro-interactions: when one child mentioned “a river that is clean”, others added “fish can swim in it” or “no garbage there.” In these moments, concepts like pollution or ecosystem health were co-constructed and reinforced through play and peer affirmation.
Materials also played a mediating role. When children chose to use natural textures (e.g., leaves, blue paper for water), they often attached meaning to them: “This is to make it feel like a forest” or “This is for recycling.” Thus, material choices were infused with symbolic environmental meaning, and children collectively interpreted and expanded on each other’s ideas.
Importantly, the climate change themes emerged in child-sized ways – through the lens of care, comfort, fairness, and sensory experience, rather than abstract data. For example, when a child commented that their design had “a roof so the sun doesn’t burn you,” it reflected an intuitive connection to climate concerns such as heat and protection.
In sum, shared knowledge about environmental issues was co-created through embodied design tasks, symbolic material use, and emotionally resonant dialogue. The Montessori setting enabled this by allowing open-ended expression, peer exchange, and time for ideas to surface, connect, and evolve organically.
What fostered children's environmental awareness and the promotion of their active role in addressing climate change issues and promoting environmental sustainability?
Children’s environmental awareness and their emergent sense of agency in addressing climate-related issues were fostered by three interconnected factors in the Montessori design project:
Environmental awareness emerged as children engaged physically and imaginatively with materials representing natural elements — such as water (blue paper, flowing lines), forests (leaves, sticks), or animals and humans in need of safe spaces. Through this hands-on process, they didn't just talk about the environment; they built it, shaped it, and cared for it. For instance, the idea of designing a place where people “can breathe” or “don’t get hot” came from tactile engagement with shelters, trees, and shade-making features. These design decisions materialized ecological thinking, turning abstract concerns into tangible actions.
The task to design a space “for others” – including imagined people, animals, or guests – fostered empathy and care, which are foundational to environmental ethics. One group decided, “We need a place for the birds to eat”, while another added “and a quiet place for tired people”. These moments revealed how the social dimension of sustainability was internalized through cooperative design; children took on the responsibility to provide comfort, safety, and harmony with nature. This imaginative perspective-taking built the foundation for an active and relational role in environmental stewardship.
The Montessori environment, with its emphasis on autonomy, uninterrupted work cycles, and meaningful materials, created space for slow thinking, deep focus, and shared meaning-making. No adult imposed environmental messages; instead, children discovered them through self-chosen collaboration, negotiating ideas and reflecting them in their models. This nurtured a sense of ownership over the design and, by extension, over the idea of caring for the environment. The teacher’s role as observer and gentle guide ensured that children’s ideas were taken seriously, reinforcing their sense of agency.
In sum, children’s awareness and emerging agency around environmental sustainability were fostered by sensorial-material exploration, affective connections with others, and the pedagogical freedom to explore environmental themes through their own language and logic. This bottom-up, embodied process aligns with both Montessori principles and contemporary approaches to early climate education.
What might have hindered children's environmental awareness and their active role in addressing climate change issues and promoting environmental sustainability?
While the Montessori design project created many opportunities for children to engage with environmental ideas, several subtle factors may have limited the depth or clarity of their awareness and agency in relation to climate change:
Although children expressed concern for others and designed spaces with natural elements, their language rarely included explicit references to environmental issues such as pollution, global warming, etc. The absence of specific vocabulary or guided reflection around the causes and consequences of environmental degradation might have limited their ability to connect their intuitive actions with broader ecological systems. For example, children designed shelters and green areas, but without linking these choices to heat, carbon, or ecosystem balance, the climate-related meaning remained implicit.
Each small group worked on separate models, and while they sometimes exchanged ideas, there was no collective integration of their designs into a shared vision or discussion of environmental impact at a larger scale. This might have hindered the development of a shared ecological narrative or an understanding of how individual actions connect to systemic change — a key component of environmental sustainability thinking.
The children’s ideas emerged entirely from imaginative and play-based design. While powerful, this process lacked a direct link to real-world environmental experiences or provocations (e.g., stories, photos, or natural phenomena). Without anchoring the design in real challenges or local environmental concerns, children’s sense of urgency or responsibility for actual change might remain abstract.
Given Montessori’s emphasis on child-led discovery, educators may have avoided introducing specific environmental problems too early or too directly. While this protects children’s autonomy, it might also result in missed opportunities to gently scaffold awareness of climate change in age-appropriate ways — through storytelling, nature walks, or shared reflection on how their models relate to the Earth’s well-being.
How have children used Digital Technologies?
In the observed Montessori environment, digital technology was used as an extension of the sensorial and experiential curriculum. Children employed a digital voice recorder (a smartphone with a dictation function) to collect environmental sounds during an outdoor exploration. This use was purposeful, self-directed, and embedded in real-world experience (key attributes of Montessori practice, where materials and tools are chosen to serve developmentally appropriate, meaningful activities).
The recording device served as a “material” in the Montessori sense, not a toy or entertainment object, but a tool that supports exploration, classification, and representation. Much like the sound boxes or bells used in the Montessori classroom to refine auditory discrimination, the digital recorder allowed children to attune to subtle sound variations, revisit them, and use them for reflection and creative expression. Importantly, the technology was not the focus of attention—it remained invisible in function, subordinate to the children’s interest in the environment.
Younger children (ages 3–4)
Digital tools were rarely used directly by the youngest children. However, they engaged with outcomes produced through technology, such as:
Older children (ages 5–6)
Older children sometimes used tablets or digital cameras, with adult guidance, to:
Digital technology was therefore used as a scaffold – introduced selectively, with clear boundaries, and always in service of the children’s real-world inquiry into climate and sustainability topics. This approach aligns with Montessori principles: prioritizing hands-on, sensorial learning while opening small, guided windows to digital tools that amplify children's ability to express, revisit, and share their ideas.
What fostered a critical approach to digital technologies?
Several conditions consistent with Montessori principles supported a critical engagement with digital tools:
What might have hindered a critical approach to digital technologies?
Some elements, although consistent with Montessori philosophy, may have inadvertently limited deeper critical engagement:
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