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Short abstract:

This paper advocates for a speculative digital methodology in early childhood education, aiming to involve children in urban climate resilience and considering their lives in city redesigns through creative digital engagement.

Long abstract:

This paper proposes a speculative digital methodology in early childhood education (Pink, 2022), addressing the gap in children’s active participation in urban climate resilience amidst over five hundred Canadian cities declaring climate emergencies and aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050 (Eidelman et al., 2022). It challenges the marginalization of children in urban policy, advocating for their inclusion as key stakeholders in city-building, aligning with calls for multidisciplinary stakeholder involvement (Bai et al., 2018).

The paper critiques Canadian guidelines cautioning against early childhood digital technology use (Teichert et al., 2023), promoting a nuanced engagement that leverages digital technologies from a more-than-human perspective (Barua, 2023). It explores digital technologies' role in embedding ecological awareness within educational practices.

Utilizing speculative digital methodologies, this paper illustrates how might children and educators engage in digital storytelling, that enable collective stories that might create and contribute to urban design amidst climate challenges. This approach underscores the potential for meaningful, ecologically conscious digital integration in education, proposing a reimagined role for technology in fostering young learners' active engagement with their urban environments.