In the Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) curriculum, there is no specific content for education for sustainable development (ESD). Thus, it is not possible to get direct guidelines on how to conduct ESD in ECEC from the curriculum. We seek to look at the preferences of Finnish early childhood educators through the model of extended environmental education. Behind this model is Palmer's tree model and an emphasis on empirical, social and ethical components of ECEC. The research method employed a survey. Altogether 924 teams in Southern Finland evaluated their learning environments. By using a factor and reliability analysis, we extracted three factors relevant to the extended Palmer's model. The teachers primarily emphasised the understanding (learning) aspects of ECEC. The second most important aspect comprised the social aspects of education. The third most important aspect included the ethical and participant aspects of ECEC. Potential implications and indications to the practice of ESD are discussed

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Scientific observation plays a central part in the formation of scientific knowledge and thus it has animportant role in the teaching and learning of science. Despite its importance there are only a few studies that focus on the problems in making observations. The paper begins with the collection offactors effecting scientific observation. In order to find out primary school student teachers’ conceptions of scientific observation 110 student teachers were asked to write what things they connect tomaking scientific observations. For the majority of the student teachers making observations seemsto mean in the first place just noticing things. Only about 30% of the student teachers connectedearlier experiences and knowledge with observations and only 30% of the student teachers mentioned processing of information. To become efficient at it, student teachers need plenty of practice and experience of the different features of scientific observation.

The trend of utilising open learning environments and informal learning sources has a clear link to outdoor education, which bridges the gap between formal education and informal learning. According to the findings related to informal learning and its relevance to early professional development, the crucial era seems to be the first 3 years as an inexperienced teacher. Despite the long history, outdoor education needs new research methods. In Finland, the new National Curriculum 2016 underlines teaching of this "phenomenon" besides the traditional subject orientated teaching. This challenges teacher professional development at all its levels. In this study, an outdoor education course for teachers and teacher trainees in Finland is evaluated using the theory and research tool of New Educational Models or Paradigms (NEMP). The main research question is to test this new research model: is it suitable when evaluating outdoor education?

Premises for sustainability in Finnish early childhood teacher education-from vision to implementation. Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) should, according to national policy documents and curricula, promote sustainable development and a sustainable life style. Early childhood educators play a key role in implementing strategies of sustainability in ECEC. This implies that sustainability should have a prominent position in early childhood teacher education. However, this is not the case. The aim of this article is to present how sustainability is formulated in Finnish policy documents as well as the premises for sustainability education in early childhood teacher education. Methodologically the study builds on a triangulation of three types of research material; national policy documents, a study of teacher students' understanding of the concept of sustainable development, and a survey concerning courses on sustainability in early childhood teacher education. The results show a discrepancy between the vision and implementation of sustainability in Finnish early childhood teacher education. Based upon the study's findings, we discuss how sustainability could be reinforced in early childhood teacher education.