Nature education is an important part of early childhood education. As young children develop, the natural world offers concrete and authentic learning experiences. Activities focused on nature support learning in all developmental domains. Children develop physically through hiking in natural terrain, climbing hills and trees, balancing on logs, or running after a butterfly. Nature offers unlimited sensory input. Cognitively, children develop by exploring the natural world, asking questions about what they find, hypothesizing about what will happen, discovering life cycles of plants and animals, and just wondering about nature. Both early childhood educators and environmental educators face barriers to introducing children to nature. The task of giving young children opportunities to have experiences with nature often falls to the early childhood educator. Several types of partnerships between early childhood programs and nature centers are possible. Programs offered for young children at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes (in Cleveland, Ohio), the Early Childhood Outdoors Institute at Fontenelle Nature Association (in Omaha, Nebraska), and the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center (in Milwaukee, Wisconsin), illustrate how early childhood and environmental educators can work together, learn from each other, and help children make positive connections to the natural world. (Contains 14 resources.)