Year 2025 | Vol XVI | Issue No. 1 (August – November 2025)
Author: Sonal Jha
Abstract
Technology is no longer a tool; it has become a teacher. Nowadays, before holding even a pencil, kids are holding phones. This article explores how digital resources such as games, apps, and storytelling platforms can be leveraged to teach complex concepts like sustainability and global responsibility. By integrating interactive digital tools, educational apps, and age-appropriate multimedia content into early childhood classrooms, educators can foster environmental awareness and social empathy in engaging, relatable ways. The article highlights strategies and examples that demonstrate how technological resources can nurture eco-conscious habits, promote global citizenship, and inspire children to become thoughtful stewards of the planet from an early age. It also includes case studies, surveys, and research-based insights to show how the right tech and intent can make value-based education engaging, relevant, and future-ready.
Introduction
In today’s interconnected world, it is vital to instill the principles of sustainability and global responsibility in children from an early age. With technology becoming an integral part of their lives, it offers a powerful medium to engage young minds in understanding and caring for the world around them. Through thoughtfully designed digital tools and interactive experiences, educators can introduce concepts like environmental care, cultural diversity, and responsible consumption in ways that are both meaningful and age-appropriate. This article delves into how technology can be a bridge to building a more conscious and compassionate next generation.
Teaching Kids Sustainability & Global Responsibility Through Technology
From mobile phones to screens, gadgets are omnipresent today. It is fair to say that children are growing up with gadgets. Thus, it is essential to make them understand the concept of sustainability and global responsibility. As per a report published by Happinetz, 42% of children under 12 years spend two to four hours daily on a screen. 47% of children, those above 12 years, are glued to the screen. But the question here is: How can technology be a helping hand in this matter? Will it help or add more screen time? Let’s explore how kids can be taught about essential issues using digital tools.
The Urgency of Early Education in Sustain- ability
Climate change is no longer a future threat; it’s already here. Global temperatures are at an all-time high, the weather is increasingly unpredictable, and natural disasters, such as droughts and floods, are in the news almost daily. As per the report of the Inter-governmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2023, if global warming increases above 1.5%, the Earth will face irreversible damage in the coming decades. And who will it affect the most? The upcoming generation, the kids of today.
So, it’s important to make them understand all these serious issues. But the problem is that we don’t teach them from childhood. Yes, environmental studies as a subject is there, but it’s limited to definitions and facts. Slogans like “say no to plastic” and “save water ” are raised, but awareness may still be lacking due to limited explanation of “how” and “why?”
That’s why it is essential to have sustainability in education and global citizenship. These are not just textbook skills but shape the lifetime behaviour of kids as citizens. When values like empathy, responsibility, civic sense, and long- term thinking are embedded from a young age, it not only helps children be aware but also action-oriented.
Developing a world view, this is not limited only to the environment. Global responsibility means seeing the world as an interconnected system. When a kid knows that their plastic bottle can pollute some other country’s river, or a tree planted by them gives oxygen, their thinking becomes global from local.
This mindset shift is important. But how to teach this to children? Kids these days get easily bored with traditional classroom methods. So, the best way of teaching them is to utilize digital tools and screens smartly.
Digital Behaviour in Early Childhood
Today’s kids recognize YouTube’s logo before they say the word “Mumma”, and it’s not an exaggeration. According to a study by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the screen time of children by the age of 3 years is more than 2.5 hours daily. And these numbers have almost doubled post-pandemic. The trend is similar in India, too. However, screen time is not just a number. It reflects the learning style of kids, their attention span, and content exposure.
What Kids Watch?
As per Kantar KidScan India Report 2024 – 61% of kids watch cartoons, nursery rhymes, and unboxing videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids. 34% watch mobile games like Minecraft and Roblox. Only 5% to 7% of kids use learning apps actively.
What’s the Problem with this?
Children watching screens is not the problem, but what they are learning from the screen is. Passive watching hurts their cognitive and emotional development, especially when the content is shallow. When they watch unboxing videos, a dopamine loop is triggered that suppresses real-world curiosity.
The Flipside
When screen time is combined with the right content, it can be a superpower for children. A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (2022) reveals that gamified content and interactive storytelling help children retain things they learn and develop values like empathy, cooperation, and problem-solving. So, the real challenge is not controlling screen time but optimizing screen quality. Kids’ behaviour shows that they think of the screen as a learning medium. Now, it is our responsibility to ensure they don’t see the screen only as a medium of entertainment but as a tool for sustainable and valued education.
Role of Technology in Education Today
Nowadays, a classroom feels incomplete without a smartboard. Textbooks are now Portable Document Formats (PDFs), homework is assigned on Google Classroom, and parent-teacher meetings are conducted on Zoom. In short, education is tech-enabled. However, the question arises: Is technology only for formality or for genuinely enhancing learning?
EdTech boomed in India during the lockdown. As per Statista, the EdTech market was more than ₹34,000 crore from 2020 to 2023. But the problem is that the main focus was on coaching, coding, and higher education. Early childhood learning, specifically topics like sustainability, is still an under-tapped area.
- What’s Already Working? Some of the tools created for kids are genuinely making an impact.
- Khan Academy Kids: Teaches emotional learning and environmental awareness through storytelling and interactive visuals.
- Epic! Books: Tell real-world stories from around the globe that develop empathy and eco-responsibility.
- Minecraft Education Edition: It helps students create a virtual ecosystem where kids learn about the effects of deforestation and pollution.
- All these activities are in the form of games. Children think they are playing games, but in reality, they are grasping complex sustainability concepts.
The Role Shift of Teachers
Teachers are no longer only about delivering content, but also curators and facilitators. Choosing the right tool and using it in the right context is the job of a teacher now. Starting a projector is not digital learning; it requires designing the content according to children’s emotional and cognitive stages. This is the point where the synergy of human judgment and technology plays a role. In other words, education is tech-ready, but are we leveraging it smartly to teach sustainability and global values?
Designing Age-Appropriate Digital Content for Sustainability
We all want kids to learn sustainability and global values, but when it comes to creating original content, i t becomes complex, disconnected, and boring. Either kids don’t understand anything, or they lose interest. Early childhood learning has a simple rule: “If they can’t feel it, they can’t learn it.” In simple words, if content throws only stats like “Global warming causes glacier melting,” what would a 5 to 8years old kid grasp? But if the same concept is presented in the form of a story – “A snowman is melting because humans are using too many cars”- the kid will connect emotionally.
What Makes Content Age-Appropriate? Key Challenge
Usually, there is no collaboration between and then design their solutions.
Approach: Kids in Grade 1 and above worked on local issues like plastic pollution, water wastage, and deforestation. They converted ideas into video stories and shared them with their community.
Tools used: Tablets/iPads, video editing apps
| Visual-Led Storytelling: | Children learn quickly through colors, characters, and images. In an animated story, a rabbit who lost his home due to pollution hits harder than a 10-minute explanation. |
| Cause-effect Mapping | Simple “If…then…” logic, like plants will die if you waste water. |
| Gamified Decision-Making | Decision-making games where kids get to decide what to do. For example, planting a tree or throwing away a plastic bag. It creates a behavioural change and long-term memory. |
| Micro-Learning Bursts | 3 to 5 minutes is easy to understand, and grasp compared to a 20-minute lecture. |
creators and educators. The animation experts have no idea of pedagogy, and the teachers have no bandwidth for design or technology. So, the content creation must be a multi-disciplinary effort where.
- Educators bring the “what to teach”
- Designers bring the “how-to show”
- Psychologists bring “what will work”
If all these people work together, Digital sustainability content will not only become informative but also transformative.
Case Studies: Real Classroom, Real Impact
When it comes to tech-enabled institutions, most schools are limited to superficial tools. However, some schools have developed a student-centric model that does not just look good on paper but also delivers measurable change. Here are some case studies –
Riverside School, Ahmedabad
The pedagogy of this school is based on “I CAN.” Their initiative of “Design for Change” is widely popular. Here, students identify problemsCanva, and YouTube to upload projects.
Impact:
- 60% of students adopted eco-friendly habits in one term, like water-saving, home composting, and the use of cloth bags instead of plastic.
- Parents also reported a noticeable change in the behaviour of their kids.
- The teacher saw a jump in the ownership and awareness amongst students.
Bluebells International School, Delhi
Bluebells School always focuses on global values. Their active citizenship program gives a platform to connect them to cross-border and global issues through technology.
Approach: Grade 3 students collaborated with the students from Ghana and Canada over Google Meet and Flipgrid. The topics were climate change, water crisis, and plastic waste. Everyone shared their solutions and feedback.
Tools Used: Google Meet for live discussion, Flipgrid for video responses, Canva for presentation
Impact:
- 91% of students in the post-program survey said that they use resources consciously, like turning off the tap and avoiding disposable items.
- A 9-year-old student built a mini rainwater harvesting model after learning about the water crisis in Ghana.
Discussion and Findings
Finding 1: Technology works when it has a clear purpose.
The “Design for Change” initiative of Riverside was not only for creating flashy content, but it was part of the process where student can share their ideas with the world. Children take technology seriously only when it becomes a problem-solving or storytelling tool.
Finding 2: Global exposure builds perspective.
Blubells School’s initiative proved that when kids connect globally, even digitally, they start seeing themselves as a part of a largeystem. Kids move beyond their backyard issues to universal matters of their homes, but they start thinking about Ghana’s water crisis and Canada’s forest fires.
Student Voice Matters
The most impactful teaching models were those where the students were part of the decision- making. When kids choose their eco-topic and design their project, their commitment level skyrockets. The actual goal is to become active change makers through passive learning.
Conclusion
Sustainability and global responsibility are big words, and children cannot understand them easily, so it is important to talk about them in their own language. Digital is one of the major parts of that language. However, technology has a real impact which is only visible when its use is intentional, emotionally engaging, and learning centered.
REFERENCES
- ASER Centre. (2022). Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2022. https://asercentre.org/ aser-2022/ASER: Annual Status of Education Report
- Design for Change. (n.d.). Design for Change Global Projects. Retrieved from https://dfcworld.org/
- Bluebells School International. (n.d.). Active Citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.bluebel lsinternational.com/active-citizenship
- UNESCO. (2017). Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000247444
- Happinetz Survey https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/42-children-below-age-of-12- spend-up-to-4-hours-daily-glued-to-screens-survey/articleshow/104147914.cms
- Kantar KidScan India Report 2024
- https://mediabrief.com/kantar-kidscan-report-india-2024/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sonal Jha, a creative and passionate Science educator, has been recognized as Innovative Teacher of the Year and honoured by the Himan Resource Development (HRD) Minister for her outstanding work.
