Wildlife Australia - Spring 2017

S

mall voices drift through the trees, mingled with birdsong.

A flash of red high in the tree might be a parrot, or perhaps

a distinctive ‘Bush Kindy’ jacket on an intrepid climber.

These small eco-warriors are busy learning in the very best of

classrooms. One day a week, for six months of the year, you’ll

find them at Bushland Park in the Adelaide Hills, participating

in a unique nature play experience – the Nature Connect Bush

Kindy program, now in its third year.

Bush Kindy has been the most amazing high of my teaching

career so far, and I consider it to be my most important work.

Led by innovative and inspiring director Lee Munn, our journey

back to the bush began in 2013 with ‘Outdoor Kindy Week’ – a

challenge to staff and students to schedule a full week of outside

learning, replacing toys with tools and immersing ourselves in

the chill of a Lobethal winter. Interestingly enough, we quickly

found that the learning that happened in this week was so

rich and authentic that many of the toys never made it back to

our kindergarten yard. Staff embarked on a pedagogical swing

towards nature play.

We continued to hold ‘Outdoor Kindy Week’ each term, and

outside quickly became our favourite place to be. Our day-to-day

teaching migrated more and more to outside. Eventually, this

turned into full days at our local Summer Track in 2014 before

launching into the Nature Connect Bush Kindy program in 2015.

Soon, other educators wanted to visit us and learn from us.

Running two Nature Connect conferences gave us the funds to

attend a Reggio Nature Play Conference in New Zealand; after

that, none of us would ever teach in quite the same way again.

Return of the ‘wild child’

Nature play is not a new concept but rather an age-old concept

made new again. Richard Louv coined the phrase ‘Nature Deficit

Disorder’ in 2005. His book Last Child In the Woods highlighted

the genuine need for humans, particularly the very young,

to get back to nature. As a movement, nature play is gaining

momentum worldwide and four Australian states (including

South Australia) now have organisations that are tasked with

getting children outside to enjoy a ‘wild’ childhood. Schools

such as John Marsden’s Candlebark, The Nature School at Port

Macquarie, and Upper Sturt Primary, are increasingly attracting

attention for their approach and for their successes.

The Australian Government has committed $12 million for

STEM in schools. Unfortunately, most people still think of STEM

only in terms of computer coding or robotics. Projects such as

‘Pathways in Technology’ and ‘Coding Across the Curriculum’ are

certainly warranted, but STEM is so much more. Bush Kindy and

Bush School programs support a holistic approach to STEM from

early childhood. Essentially, STEM is about curiosity – about

thinking creatively, innovatively, and collaboratively.

What starts out as a curious question from a four-year-old

about why there is water one week when there wasn’t before can

turn into multiple explorations of water courses, mapping and

contour lines, water quality, bridges and rainfall. We are about

to embark on a mapping project using drones and GoPros, along

BENEFITS OF OUTDOORS LEARNING

• Well-being (including general health and immunity,
  resilience, and the ability to self regulate and risk assess).


• The gift of uninterrupted time: time to think, time to be,
  time to reflect, time to explore and discover.


• Language development and social skills, as relationships
  are developed and strengthened in the bush.


• Higher-level thinking skills and 21st-century skill sets.


• Gross motor and vestibular development, including
  stamina and core strength.

Photos: Janelle Ward

HOW BUSH KINDY

IS ENCOURAGING

AUSTRALIA’S

SMALLEST SCIENTISTS

In pre-colonial Australia, all children learned outside. Science meant survival,

and the tracks of animals, the tides, the seasons and the weather were

all life lessons. Following European settlement and the onward march of

empire, education became an indoor affair. Learning the three R’s superseded

experiencing the ‘ahs’ and ‘a-ha’s’ of the natural world. Did our great strides

forward in education set us back in other ways? Early childhood educator

Janelle Ward explains how a movement towards ‘nature play’ encourages

children to appreciate the world around them and supports STEM learning.

BACK TO

BASICS

38 | Wildlife Australia | SPRING 2017