In a study undertaken in Queensland, Australia, analysis of a survey that included both qualitative and quantitative questions revealed that, like their Japanese counterparts, early childhood teachers do not have well-developed ideas and practices in education for sustainability (EfS). Instead, they mainly practise traditional nature-based activities, such as gardening or playing outdoors, and teaching about resource conservation through books, posters or fact sheets. Teachers’ understandings of nature education, environmental education, and education for sustainability seem to influence their educational practices. Deeper understandings about sustainability are necessary to extend beyond such traditional practices. Even though national curriculum frameworks and guidelines point to the importance of sustainability within early childhood curriculum, these appear to be insufficient in strengthening early childhood teachers’ ideas of sustainability and how to practise it effectively. We suggest that it would be beneficial for early childhood teachers, both preservice and inservice, to have professional development opportunities that build deeper understandings of sustainability and its implementation in their settings.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in methods of eliciting children's views on factors influencing their lives. When children's views are sought it is important that this is done in a developmentally appropriate manner with instruments whose psychometric properties are known. The present review describes a variety of methods that have been used to evaluate children's satisfaction with services in education, paediatrics and mental health. The majority of the studies used self-completion questionnaires and provided only limited information on reliability. Means of establishing reliability and validity in research with children are discussed, as are the variables that have been found to correlate with child satisfaction.