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Our world faces environmental and socio-cultural problems that will impact young children in the long term. Therefore it is important to advance research in the field of Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) to support educators in working alongside young children, families, and communities toward a more sustainable future. The purpose of my study was to create professional development to support educators in engaging in ECEfS with the children in their care. The participants were 14 early childhood educators who worked with young children between the ages of 1.5 and 5 years old. My study was grounded in social constructivist theory and systems theory, and was informed by the work of influential scholars in ECEfS. I adopted a complex mixed methods design that consisted of four research phases. In Phase 1, I collected qualitative and quantitative data about the educators' ECEfS previous knowledge and practices by means of the adapted Environmental Rating Scale for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood and interviews. In Phase 2, I merged the qualitative and quantitative data, created and implemented ECEfS professional development, and let 2 months pass for the educators to apply the strategies learned in the professional development. In Phase 3, I conducted a second implementation of the scale and a second round of interviews. In Phase 4, I performed a final merged interpretation of the data. Results of the study indicated that some of the educators' ECEfS reported practices improved slightly after the professional development while other ECEfS practices decreased due to strict COVID-19 restrictions. Although the modest improvements in the educators' ECEfS practices after the professional development point to the need for a deeper and broader engagement with ECEfS, the educators' reported engagement with ECEfS also provided evidence about the importance of professional dialogues, reflective practices, and loose parts as mediums to engage in ECEfS. A key implication is that some ECEs are engaging in ECEfS despite not labeling their practices as such.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of environmental, educational, and household chaos on the development of an atypically developing child. The study evaluates the contribution and change of parental stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures. Following Case Study methodology, this is an in-depth evaluation of one mother and child's experience, including data analysis of the child's social, emotional, and cognitive development before and after chaos. The results of this case study identified the development of a child before and after chaotic events occurred. Parental stress was also identified as a contributing factor in the results of this study. The results implicate that school systems are a vital piece to the support, management, and growth of healthy child development in atypical children. Results further suggest that parental stress and chaos play a key role in the healthy social-emotional development of a child. Results suggest that cognitive development benefits from smaller group interactions, rather than large, classroom sized, interactions.

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