The study emerges from a well-documented tension in early childhood education. Spain’s national curriculum for children aged zero to six explicitly mandates the cultivation of environmentally responsible habits, including responsible consumption, in alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 12 on responsible consumption and production. Yet classroom-based research indicates that the idea of a “responsible consumer” is conceptually demanding for five-year-olds, even when children can readily name planet-friendly practices. Meanwhile, systematic reviews of game-based sustainability interventions have found that of the fully developed games designed to teach environmental concepts, none were created for early childhood classrooms, and none specifically tackled the responsible consumption of local versus distant foods. Commercially available options tend to reduce the topic to simple recycling-sorting exercises, leaving the deeper conceptual work entirely to the educator.

The research team, led by Miguel Romero Gutiérrez, Francisco Serrano-García, Carlos de Pro Chereguini, and Marina Martínez-Carmona, approached the problem through design-based research, an iterative methodology in which educational tools are tested, refined, and recontextualized based on systematic feedback. An earlier pilot phase had enlisted three practicing early childhood teachers to evaluate the initial Buy Smart prototype. Their recommendations shaped the design criteria that governed the final version: the game had to be cooperative rather than competitive, it had to make waste visually traceable through a simple shared tracker, and it had to foreground the contrast between local and non-local products by loading the board with a higher frequency of locally sourced items.

The mechanics of Buy Smart are deliberately simple. Players share a common shopping list and must collectively gather the required food items from a six-by-six grid of shuffled tiles before the group accumulates too much waste. Each turn, a child rolls a die showing one to three steps and moves a pawn across the board. Landing on a listed item adds it to the collective haul; landing on an unlisted food sends it to a designated waste pile and advances the shared waste marker, making the cumulative consequences of inefficient choices visible to everyone. The group wins by completing the list and returning home before exceeding the waste limit. A wooden board, thirty-four product tiles, ten shopping list cards, four pawns, a house tile, and a die constitute the entire apparatus—an intentionally analogue design that the authors defend as equitable, accessible, and rich in social interaction, in contrast to screen-based alternatives that raise concerns about unequal access and the cognitive effects of early screen exposure.

Crucially, teacher feedback from the pilot indicated that the game worked best for reinforcing rather than introducing sustainability concepts. This insight directly informed the structure of the didactic sequence, which placed the board game in a final application phase after children’s prior ideas had been elicited and confronted. The sequence drew on inquiry-based approaches to early science education and on models of conceptual change, moving children through elicitation, confrontation, restructuring, and application of their ideas across two classroom sessions with twenty-five five-year-olds in a Spanish region famous for its citrus and vegetable production—an agricultural context the researchers exploited by anchoring the lessons in lemons, an emblematic local crop.

The most striking findings concern the evolution of children’s explanatory frameworks. Before the intervention, when asked whether lemons or fish generated waste, children spoke almost exclusively of concrete remains. One child insisted that “lemons don’t make waste,” while others noted that the peel goes in the bin or that fish leave bones and skin. Waste, in their initial understanding, was something you could see and throw away. The turning point came during an embodied activity in which children physically transported foods from their places of origin to a market by jumping through hoops, an experience designed to make the invisible labor and emissions of food transport tangible. When subsequently asked which food polluted more—fish or lemon—twenty-one of twenty-four children, or 88 percent, chose fish, but their justifications had transformed. Children no longer cited bones; they explained that fish produced more waste “because it comes from farther away.”

Quantitative comparisons, though explicitly framed by the authors as exploratory rather than confirmatory given the small sample of nineteen children who completed both assessments, corroborated this shift. The selection of pineapple—a conspicuously non-local food—as the greatest waste generator rose dramatically from 10.5 percent before the intervention to 63.2 percent afterward, a change that reached statistical significance. By the end of the sequence, children consistently explained that foods from farther away “make more smoke” and therefore harm the planet more. The researchers interpret this as evidence that children began to construct relational and causal explanations about sustainability, using proximity and transport as analytic criteria rather than relying on immediate visual cues.

The study also delivers a pointed methodological message. The richest evidence of learning emerged not from the paper-and-pencil worksheets administered before and after the intervention, but from classroom observation and children’s oral discourse during discussions and play. Written responses showed limited change, partly because children grew visibly tired during the post-test and devoted more energy to coloring than to the task itself. The authors argue that this discrepancy validates calls within the field to replace or supplement written assessment with authentic, multimodal, context-sensitive evaluation that captures young children’s competences through action, dialogue, and participation—a stance consistent with sociocultural theories of learning rooted in Vygotsky’s account of knowledge construction through shared social experience.

The affective dimension of the intervention proved equally revealing. Asked to evaluate the game by choosing between a happy face and a sad face, seventeen of twenty children, or 85 percent, chose the happy face. But the three negative responses were, paradoxically, a signature of success: rather than rejecting the activity, the dissenting children objected to the game’s central mechanic, complaining that discarding foods not on the shopping list was wrong because such foods “should be eaten.” The researchers read these comments as an emerging ethical sensitivity to food waste—precisely the disposition the sequence aimed to cultivate. The classroom teacher, interviewed after the intervention, praised the proposal as pedagogically useful and feasible, singling out the movement-based transport activity with its smoke-cloud imagery as especially effective for helping children visualize pollution, while recommending that the board game be implemented in small-group stations where close adult mediation could scaffold play into learning. The authors conclude that educational games in early childhood should never be treated as self-sufficient tools; their value depends on the quality of the surrounding instructional design, the grounding of abstract concepts in familiar local contexts, and sustained opportunities for guided reflection and dialogue.

Subject of Research: A play-based didactic sequence using a cooperative board game to foster responsible consumption understanding in early childhood education.

Article Title: Buy Smart: Introducing Responsible Consumption in Early Childhood Education: A Play-Based Didactic Sequence on Food, Waste, and Environmental Impact

Article References: Romero Gutiérrez, M., Serrano-García, F., de Pro Chereguini, C., & Martínez-Carmona, M. (2026). Buy Smart: Introducing Responsible Consumption in Early Childhood Education: A Play-Based Didactic Sequence on Food, Waste, and Environmental Impact. International Journal of Early Childhood. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-026-00549-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s13158-026-00549-2

Keywords: game-based learning, responsible consumption, early childhood education, sustainability education, cooperative board game, food miles, food waste, environmental impact, design-based research, preschool science education, Sustainable Development Goal 12, local food

The study meticulously involved 25 children between the ages of 60 and 72 months, representing a crucial window of cognitive development marked by heightened curiosity and rapid acquisition of foundational skills. The experimental design hinged upon contrasting two pedagogical approaches: traditional, didactic classroom instruction and active engagement through hands-on science experiments. Over a five-week period, researchers observed and measured the children’s intrinsic motivation toward science, employing validated motivational scales tailored to early childhood learners.

Quantitative data analysis revealed that children exposed to hands-on science activities exhibited markedly increased motivation to engage with scientific concepts compared to their peers who remained within conventional instructional frameworks. This finding underscores the pedagogical potency of tactile, interactive learning experiences in facilitating not only comprehension but also sustained enthusiasm for science. The research addresses an important lacuna in educational literature by empirically affirming that young learners thrive when encouraged to explore, manipulate, and experiment with scientific materials firsthand.

From a technical perspective, the hands-on activities implemented encompassed a range of age-appropriate scientific experiments designed to foster inquiry skills, observation, and hypothesis formation. These activities leveraged basic scientific principles, such as cause and effect, physical properties, and simple biological phenomena, adapted to the cognitive and motor abilities of preschool children. Importantly, this sensory-rich learning environment promoted multi-modal engagement, combining visual, tactile, and auditory stimuli intrinsic to effective early science education.

The quasi-experimental methodology used in the Çukurova University study bolsters the credibility of the results by mitigating confounding variables typically present in educational research. Although the relatively small sample size limits broad generalizability, the statistically significant differences observed offer compelling evidence supporting hands-on science pedagogies. Furthermore, the absence of gender differences in motivation enhancement is particularly noteworthy, demonstrating that hands-on approaches are universally beneficial regardless of gender during early developmental stages.

The implications for early childhood education policy and curriculum design are profound. By integrating hands-on science activities into preschool programs, educators can effectively nurture a generation of learners primed for further STEM engagement. This aligns closely with global educational initiatives aimed at closing the gender gap in science fields and fostering equitable access to high-quality science learning opportunities. The study’s emphasis on motivation is critical, as early enthusiasm for science has been linked to higher educational attainment and career persistence in STEM disciplines.

The researchers also emphasize the role of the teacher as a facilitator in these hands-on contexts. Rather than mere transmitters of knowledge, educators become guides who scaffold young learners’ exploration, prompting inquiry and supporting reflective discussion. This pedagogical shift requires professional development and resource investment but promises significant returns in cognitive and affective outcomes among preschoolers. By creating environments rich in sensory and exploratory opportunities, teachers can leverage the innate curiosity of children to foster meaningful and lasting scientific understanding.

Critical to understanding the success of this approach is the recognition that young children learn best through active engagement within authentic contexts. The study reaffirms constructivist theories of learning which posit that knowledge construction occurs through direct interaction with the environment. Hands-on science, therefore, serves as an ideal avenue for such engagement, enabling even very young learners to construct mental models and engage in scientific reasoning processes typically reserved for older students.

Moreover, this study contributes to a growing body of evidence that early science education need not be abstract or purely expository. Instead, tactile, manipulative experiences rooted in concrete phenomena provide an invaluable scaffold for abstract thinking later in life. The collaborative nature of many hands-on activities also supports social learning dimensions, fostering communication skills and teamwork abilities alongside scientific reasoning.

It is worth noting that motivation is a multidimensional construct encompassing intrinsic interest, self-efficacy, and perceived value of science. By enhancing motivation through hands-on science, educational interventions can positively influence these psychological constructs concurrently, resulting in more robust and enduring engagement. The Çukurova University study thus opens new pathways for designing motivationally informed curricula in early childhood science education.

While some might question the scalability of hands-on science activities given practical constraints such as classroom size, resource availability, and teacher preparation, the study’s findings advocate for investment in experiential science resources tailored to young children. Pilot programs and longitudinal follow-ups to this study could further elucidate long-term impacts on academic trajectories and STEM disposition.

In conclusion, the study from Çukurova University offers rigorous, empirically grounded evidence that hands-on scientific experimentation significantly enhances preschool children’s motivation for science learning. This effect is consistent across genders and underscores a vital opportunity for educators to reimagine early science instruction in a more engaging, equitable, and effective manner. With continued research and advocacy, such innovations hold the promise of nurturing the next generation of curious minds and future scientists.

Subject of Research:
The impact of hands-on science activities on preschool children’s motivation to learn science.

Article Title:
Not provided.

News Publication Date:
Not provided.

Web References:
Not provided.

References:
Çukurova University study published in ECNU Review of Education.

Image Credits:
Not provided.

Keywords:
Preschool science education, motivation, hands-on activities, early childhood learning, STEM, experiential learning, quasi-experimental study, science motivation, cognitive development, early education pedagogy.