The purpose of this study was to discover what effect environmental education by early childhood educational organizations on children s respectful recognition of life and environmental attitudes and to explore the educational meaning and values of environmental education and respectful recognition of changing nature through environmental education. Subjects of this study were 40 private kindergarten students (21 boys, 19 girls) in Yeondong, Jeju-do. Results of the study were as follows: Firstly, test results showed that the experimental group of children, which experienced environmental education connected to story sharing using picture books, was confirmed by post-testing to have increased respectful recognition of life. The three subdomains of respectful attitude, knowledge and actions toward life also showed marked improvement, and theses differences were statistically significant. Secondly, improvement in environmental attitudes was confirmed through post-testing among children who had received environmental education compared to the control group. The subdomains of great improvement, and these differences were statistically significant. Taken together, these research results mean that environmental education connected to story sharing using picture books increased children s respectful recognition of life and had a positive effect on their environmental attitudes.