Cultivating Ecological Generosity and Sustainability in Elementary Youth and Student Teachers via Children's Books

Teacher candidates enrolled in a Civic Science for Elementary Schools course at a public university in a Midwestern state developed children's books on ecological diversity and sustainability. The children's books were analyzed qualitatively using constant comparative analyses that involved analyzing each book's images and text for evidence of key themes. Analyses demonstrated children's book creation as an instructional pedagogy and ecological diversity and sustainability as curricular content powerful to enhance ENL student engagement, identification, and learning in a new cultural, linguistic, and ecological setting. Book creation involves narrative and visual explanation of key concepts accessible to ENL learners. Ecological diversity and sustainability are values shared across regions and can enhance ENL student identification with a new school context, while valuing their knowledge funds. The public library emerged as a supportive glocal civic space to build pedagogical bridges among teacher candidates, elementary schools, and the shared community resource of children's books.