STEM/STEAM in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS): A Systematic Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
When reading the abstract, a connection between the theoretical orientation and the choice to perform experiments, rather than teach knowledge, and skills, or to foster children's abilities to act for sustainability. The connection is unclear after reading the article. Moreover, I suggest using the word "Appoloneon" in the abstract, for clarification.
In the search string "ECEfS" is not included, nor is "science education" which might have contributed to the relatively low data mass of only 12 papers.
The pillars of sustainability is only mentioned, without being defined. Moreover, it is not clear how the evaluation of the inclusion of the three pillars was conducted.
I am wondering how papers concerning vapor (steam) got excluded, after passing the previous booleans, including the search terms : “early childhood” OR “early education” OR “early years” OR preschool OR kinder* OR “Initial education” OR “nursery education”) AND (sustainab* OR environmental OR bush OR forest. As working with, or describing steam is in itself within the STEAM field, this might point to a lack in search/inclusion terms.
Using the word cloud to confirm the correctness of the booleans is not sensible when all papers are put in one word cloud, as it hides if the single papers indeed live up to all the criteria set.
There are several typos/failures and inconsistences with uppercase and lowercase (e.g. line 75 "Connection", "C/connection to nature" line 193 and 194, "Posthuman/Post-human" line 193 and 206, "Former" line 222, "The United..." line 366, "Appoloneon child" line 455 but "dionysian child" line 458), in the search string the terms should be in quotation marks (line 257 and following), there is an inconsistence in punctuation (sometimes Oxford comma e.g. line 128, sometimes not e.g. line 99)
In line 327 it should be Figure 3 and the tables 3 and 4 should have lines between the columns to be readable.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We attach a pdf document addressing each one of your suggestions and the resulting changes to the manuscript. We thank you for investing time in this process. Your help was valuable in improving it.
Kind regards,
the authors.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This submission is very interesting and a valuable contribution to the growing bank of literature on education for sustainability. I like the aim of the article very much and feel that 'sustainability for education' might come some way to dispel the myth that EfS is too complex for young children to grasp, and highlight its intersection with the subjects included in STEM/STEAM.
The content, methodology and discussion are very good in my opinion and require little improvement beyond the points below. I feel there is some degree of repetition or some material not essential to the overall argument. It would be good to streamline the article somewhat as it is rather long. I wonder, for example, if it is necessary to evaluate all of the articles within Table 3, and it might be more effective to present as a thematic review rather than systematic. In the light of this, I would appreciate some space created within the word count for further discussion on two issues:
1. The implication of the lack of theory on the economic pillar
2. The implication of STEM being more evident in literature than STEAM.
What do these say about Efs pedagogy currently, and what might this mean for education in the future?
Please pay attention to the following in order to tidy up:
Lines 75-6 - unclear
Line 88 - limestone? Is the correct term here?
Line 95 - Brundtland Report - please include the title of the report i.e. 'Our Common Future
Line 106 and throughout - maybe rather than using 'people' you might use a term such as 'learner' or student.
Line 135 - typing error
Lines 168-9 - I like this: the rationality from “education for sustainability” to “sustainability for education” - could this be included in the initial introduction to this aim of the article (lines 68-70)?
Line 185 - typing error
I will look forward to reading the revised version of this article in due course.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We attach a pdf document addressing each one of your suggestions and the resulting changes to the manuscript. We thank you for investing time in this process. Your help was valuable in improving it.
Kind regards,
the authors.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1. The abstract is clear and it attracts the reader to continue reading the paper.
2. A distinction between STEM and STEAM has to be done. There are different arguments on this issue with strong opinions and authors have to explain their perspective. This is done at page 4, however previously there are used as being the same.
3. The methodology is clear and well structured.
4. Figure 4 could be discussed further.
5. Table 3 is difficult to be understood by the reader. There are too many dimensions of the same table.
6. The discussion at the end underlines clearly the authors' contribution with this work.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We attach a pdf document addressing each one of your suggestions and the resulting changes to the manuscript. We thank you for investing time in this process. Your help was valuable in improving it.
Kind regards,
the authors.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors did a well job with addressing my suggestions, thank you!
