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Listening to young children with/in nature: Relational, pedagogical and community approaches that work
Book chapter   Peer reviewed

Listening to young children with/in nature: Relational, pedagogical and community approaches that work

Ali Black, Lisa Ryan and Okjong Ji
Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability, 3rd Edition, pp.91-119
Cambridge University Press, 3rd Edition
2024

Abstract

early childhood sustainability education environment Australia international ECEfS relational pedagogical community approaches
In this chapter, the authors focus on working collaboratively with the wider community to engage in ECEfS values. They do this through discussing a story from the field from Korea, where children actively engaged in a project to protect local wildlife, and a collaboration in Australia between an early childhood university academic with an interest in participatory and arts-based approaches that support listening to children, and an environmental educator with the local council. Each project demonstrates the value of shared goals, openness and trust between partners. The Australian project was based at the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve, a public environmental visitor centre situated in a popular rainforest reserve on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, and comprised partnerships between environmental education centre staff and volunteers, student teachers, early childhood practitioners and children aged from 3 to 10 years. The ripple effects of these projects led to powerful ways of thinking and doing ECEfS that enriched child, family and community connections, and strengthened individual, collective and organisational commitments to sustainability.

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