Within early childhood education a common idea is that children’s”sense” of nature can be developed through nature experience(Piaget 1929, Cobb 1959, Carlson 1965).EE has focused on their close connection to nature and educate them “in” the nature(Lucus 1972, Robottom & Hart 1993).But concerning about Education for Sustainability(EfS),as one of the important effects in early childhood, children could be considered as a part of the ecological system which means not only nature but also social environment. In this sense, it would be the important aims on EfS in early childhood is to encourage their national abilities and facilitate their “sense”of living “in” our sustainable earth and connect to this “Sense” to the “Science” through the“Model” of Sustainability. Furthermore, it would be necessary to facilitate “Practice” for it with“Group-ethics”(Brunner,1996, Asano, 2009).

 Klaar and Öhman (2013) point out the multiple effects of combining natural experience with a democratic approach as a role of preschool practice that facilitates sustainable societies. Here importance of educational method as not to teach children, but allow them to ”grow” (Dewey 1916). In this sense, it seems to be important to rethink the value of ”play” which is a prominent activity for human-being(Hoijinga, 1938). Bruner,J(1960) points out the character of lerning as “observation” and the effects of “play” as “social leaning”.Lave＆Wenger(1993) suggests the process of participating in the “play” as “Legitimate peripheral participation”. Following these interpretation of "play",  it would be necessary to focus on “Community of pracsis” as learning process in“play” to educate children for contributing sustainable societies.

 This study will focus on the research question, ”How are preschool teacher in Sweden and Japan promote the growth of children’s ability for Sustainability through ”play”? which is based on the curriculum differences in Sweden and Japan;Sweden is especially linked to nature experience, democracy and Japan is especially linked to nature experience.

 The actual terms,EfS are never mentioned in the Swedish national preschool curriculum (National agency for education 2011) It has been focusing more on nature experience,autonomy and solidality from perspective of democracy (Öhman 2013).It has been also more focusing on subject orientated learning of ”Natural science”, ”Mathmatics and Technology”.Recently, Folke&Löfdahl(2014) points out the lack of preschool teacher’s proffesion of care and mention that ”care seems less articulated and thus perhaps a less important aspect of preschool, seen in relation to the increasingly prominent concept of learning.” 

 Sundberg et al(2013) points out thatSwedish preschool children are used to be in the nature.Thus environmental teaching has traditionally been implemented through children’s encounters with nature(Ärlemalm-Hagsér 2013) and encouraged to learn the concept of Sustainability in creative activity in ”play”(Sundberg et al, 2013) And they suggests children may construct the ”Emergent science” which has been created by something else than ”school teaching”.Finally they conclude “the rules of respective preschool community is most important factor for how teachers shape activities and thereby the outcome of the activities”.

 On the other hand, in the Japanese national curriculum for preschool(2008), the importance of relating ”play” activities in the nature and society is emphasised as a means for growing “sense” and learning the base of ”Science”. But in this curriculum, there is no explanation that children is a part of the ecological system or links to sustainable society which is linked to democracy. Inoue(2007) points out the subject of EE in Japan by comparing with Sweden and mentions that it would be important to facilitate children’s environmental awareness living in sustainable society and construct the curriculum and guideline.

Piaget, J.（1929）”The child’s conception of the world”. Harcourt Brace Cobb. E.（1959）”The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood
”, The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Carson, R. (1965). The sense of wonder, NewYork, USA: Harper Collins. Lucus, A. (1972). Environment and environmental education: Conceptual issues and curriculum interpretations: Unpublished doctoral dissertation,The Ohio State University. Robottom, I. & Hart, P. (1993). Research in environmental education: Engaging the dabate. Geelong,Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press. Brunner, W. (1996) “The Mission”, Solbergskolan Visby, Sweden,Gotlands Klaar, S ＆Öhman, J (2013) “Children's meaning making of nature in an outdoor-oriented and democratic Swedish preschool practice.“ European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. Dewey, J. (1916) ”Democracy and Education; An introduction to the philosophy of Education.New York:The Free Press. Asano.Y.(2011) ”The Comparative study of Education for Sustainable Development in early childhood in Sweden and Japan.: Through “The environmental epistemological model of 5 aspects”. Scientia Socialis, Problems of Education in the 21 st Century, 11 edition. , pp23-32 Inoue, M.（2007）”The importance of the concept of “sense of wonder” in early childhood education”, Research journal of children’s environment, pp38-45. National Agency for Education. 2011. Curriculum for the preschool Lpfö 98, revised 2010. Stockholm: Fritzes. http://www.skolverket.se/publikationer?id=2704 Öhman,J. (2013) “How can pre-school promote sustainable development? – the Swedish example” The presentation in Workshop in Kaneyama-machi, Japan.22.11.2013. Homo ludens (1938) “Homo Ludens.” Versuch einer Bestimmung des Spielelements der Kultur. Bruner,J (1960) ”The process of education”, Harvard University Press Lave, J and Wenger,E (1991) “Situated Learning. Legitimate peripheral participation”, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press Folke,M. & Löfdahl,A. (2014) ” The meaning of care in the performative preschool”, The paper presentation at The 42 th Conference if the Nordic Education Research Association (NERA) conference,. Lilleharmmer, Norway, March, 2014 Sundberg, B.,et al (2013) Emergent science in preschool. Conference Proposal at 10th Conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) Nicosia, Cyprus 2nd to 7th September 2013 Ärlemalm-Hagsér, E. (2013) ‘An interest in the best for the world Education for sustainability in the Swedish preschool. Doctoral thesis. Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis Göteborg, Sweden Japanese national curriculum for nursery and preschool (2008) 「幼稚園教育要領」、平成20年3月、文部科学省 Geertz, C.(1973) "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture". Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973. 3-30. Engeström,Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research (Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit).