Refer to the a2-requirements doc. Also, check the live session recording in this link to see some example mind maps and tips:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1khDCb5n8CFL1shaWyB0QUtVmCtkhnLnc/view?usp=sharing
Nature Pedagogy Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (age 0 – 5 years) Assessment 2: Mind map Word/time limit: 1500 (+/- 10%) Study resources: Children in Wild Nature : A Practical Guide to Nature-Based Practice by Niki Buchan · An Australian perspective of a forest school: shaping a sense of place to support learning (Cumming & Nash, 2015) https://www.outdoor-learning-research.org/Portals/0/Research%20Documents/Horizons%20Archive/H62.HistoryofForestSchool.Pt2.pdf?ver=2014-12-15-113352-000 The purpose of this task is to develop your understanding of how the elements of nature (air, water, fire/light, earth) address teaching and learning in line with curricula areas. Assessment details Follow the following steps to complete this assignment: Step 1: Using one of the four elements of nature (wind, earth, water, light/fire) complete a mind map by brainstorming learning experience ideas and teaching strategies for each curriculum learning area across 3–5 years. Use the following example as a template to help you format your mind map: •Mind map example (PDF 77 KB). The content in the mind map should demonstrate an awareness of how teaching through nature pedagogical approaches link to and support other teaching pedagogies. Step 2: In a Word document attached to the mind map, address the following points: · list the concepts and attitudes that could be covered · justify how your teaching strategies address a diverse range of learning needs and strengths of children · discuss how nature programs support socially inclusive teaching and assessment practices · demonstrate how nature learning has implications for student’s health, wellbeing, and safety, and how it contributes to children’s development. In your response you must recognise the importance of demonstrating a positive attitude towards science and the environment and explain why children should be taught this curriculum. Note: the reference list is not included in the word count. Assessment criteria 1. Mind map: demonstrates understanding of one element of nature (Air, Water, Fire/Light, Earth). 2. Mind map: content demonstrates an awareness of how teaching through nature approaches link to and support other teaching pedagogies. 3. Word document: concepts and attitudes. 4. Word document: how nature programs support socially inclusive teaching and assessment practices. 5. Word document: the importance of modelling a positive attitude towards science and the environment. 6. Academic conventions. 7. References. Your work will be assessed using the following marking guide: Unit learning outcomes × · K1: Demonstrate an understanding of health, wellbeing and safety and implications for and of nature learning. · K2: Articulate the role and value of nature pedagogy as a curriculum approach. · K3: Demonstrate an awareness of how the dynamic nature of teaching afforded through nature pedagogical approaches link to and support other pedagogies. · K4: Demonstrate an understanding of content teaching areas, in particular, science, and how they be addressed using nature and play-based pedagogies. · K5: Outline legislative and curricula requirements as they relate to conducting nature program. · K6: Articulate how nature programs support socially inclusive teaching and assessment practices. · K8: Recognise the importance of demonstrating a positive attitude toward science and the environment. · K9: Comprehend that science includes attitudes and processes as well as concepts. · K10: Demonstrate an understanding of how to select science experiences appropriate to young children. · S1: Analyse and critically reflect on nature pedagogy approaches. · S3: Plan engaging experiences for young children in prior to school settings, ensuring health, safety, curricula and regulatory requirements are addressed. · S4: Identify socially inclusive teaching and assessing strategies. · S5: Differentiate strategies, content and concepts to address the needs of a full range of abilities, interests and dispositions. · S7: Explain why science and environmental education should be taught to children. · S8: Describe the various ways in which science experiences and environmental education can contribute to children's development. · S9: Be conscious of the role that the adult can play in assisting young children to explore science and their environment. · A1: Use their knowledge of nature to identify curricula content, in particular scientific content, attitudes and processes that can be addressed using nature approaches. · A2: Use their knowledge of child development and learning, to plan appropriate science and nature-based experiences that address the needs of a range of abilities and interests and sociocultural backgrounds in the early years. Earth Chapter objectives In this chapter, I aim to: • consider the properties of earth as a medium for play • explore the potential of mud • discuss the topography of settings • look at the opportunities for risk and adventure. Introduction Tactile play is a staple of early years settings. We know that this is one of the earliest ways in which very young children learn about their world, and is the way we make contact and express affection with each other throughout our lives. It provides comfort, knowledge, stimulation and pleasure. Tactile activities are used to support development with children who are difficult to reach, and with adults who are trauma- tised. We hold hands in times of heightened emotion, and hug each other at important moments. We cannot truly understand the nature of an object or a setting unless we can make contact with it – which is why all the informative television in the world cannot replace an actual experience. So it is that as we live on the earth, we need tactile contact with it. In settings we provide tactile play. Sand and water play are common- place, and we each provide our own favourite variants, such as corn- flour and water, ‘slime’, finger paints, etc. With younger children, we also acknowledge the sensory value of babies playing with their food, and we know that feeling it squidge through their fingers encourages their manipulative skills (DfES, 2007: 57). We take messy activities out- side in the summer, in order that they do not create as much mess 02-Knight-4133-CH-01.indd 9 22/12/2010 9:34:59 AM Co py ri gh t © 2 01 1. S AG E Pu bl ic at io ns L td . Al l ri gh ts r es er ve d. M ay n ot b e re pr od uc ed i n an y fo rm w it ho ut p er mi ss io n fr om t he p ub li sh er , ex ce pt f ai r us es p er mi tt ed u nd er U .S . or ap pl ic ab le c op yr ig ht l aw . EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 8/6/2024 10:26 AM via FEDERATION UNIVERSITY AUSTRALIA AN: 980930 ; Sara Knight.; Risk & Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play : Learning From Forest Schools Account: univball 10 RIsk and advEntuRE In EaRly yEaRs outdooR play indoors, and to offer opportunities for extensions such as foot painting. We are missing the main tactile ingredient that the outdoor environ- ment offers us. Earth is all around us, but usually we don’t pay it very much attention. It is described as dirt, grit, mud and other such derogatory terms. It is something to wash off our hands, scrape off our boots and wipe off our coats. And yet it comes in an amazing variety of colours and textures, and is our constant partner in outdoor play. It is not only brown. Sit and look at some earth, and see how many colours you can see in it. Earth is one of the things that most children love and some adults don’t, a theme that will recur throughout this book. This may well have some- thing to do with the ‘earth + water = mud’ equation, so we will start by confronting this prejudice head on, and consider the potential of mud. Some will feel that there is a risk element here, which we will consider. After mud comes digging. As a child, I spent holidays on the wide beaches of north Norfolk, constructing canal systems and castles – some- thing I will return to in the next chapter. Here I will write about digging the earth to create changes in levels, with bridges and roadways, digging that increases team-working skills and cooperation. This will develop into links with Chapters 2 and 5. This digging can be an adventure, to create something new and big and together. I will then consider the value of changes in levels in general, such as those created or discovered by adults to make the topography of the area to be used more interesting, followed up in the Points for practice sec- tion. This will lead into consideration of the opportunities for engage- ment with earth in the wilder environment, and the adventure element that is inherent in it. Mud and its potential The EYFS (DfES, 2007: 57) talks about using gloop, etc. to encourage mark making with very young children. Figure 1.1 is a demonstration of spontaneous mark making by a three-year-old. Not surprisingly, it is the first letter of her name, her personal identifying mark. When chil- dren have learned the first letter of their name, they like to practise it and use it, often to express their presence and sense of belonging or of ownership. She has used sticks, as the earth that day was hard (which gives a better contrast for the photograph), but on other days the stick became the tool to make marks in the mud. Consider mud as both a slate and a clay tablet. Here are links to the history of writing, as well as to the development of writing in young children. The expression ‘ontology echoes phylogeny’ roughly translates as ‘the development of the individual echoes the development of the species’. So it is that the 02-Knight-4133-CH-01.indd 10 22/12/2010 9:34:59 AM Co py ri gh t © 2 01 1. S AG E Pu bl ic at io ns L td . Al l ri gh ts r es er ve d. M ay n ot b e re pr od uc ed i n an y fo rm w it ho ut p er mi ss io n fr om t he p ub li sh er , ex ce pt f ai r us es p er mi tt ed u nd er U .S . or ap pl ic ab le c op yr ig ht l aw . EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 8/6/2024 10:26 AM via FEDERATION UNIVERSITY AUSTRALIA AN: 980930 ; Sara Knight.; Risk & Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play : Learning From Forest Schools Account: univball EaRtH 11 youngest child makes marks into a soft surface (food, mud, clay) and with sticks, as our ancestors did before the invention of paper. As they grow older, the mark making becomes more ornate, and it carries a clearer meaning. It is difficult for us to know what the meanings of marks made by babies and toddlers are, if there are any, but we know that the rehearsal of the marks is an important part of the development of writing, just as the marks in clay tablets found in archaeological digs had meaning in ancient civilisations, and in some cases were the precursors of the forms of writing we use today. This is a roundabout way of saying that our youngest/least able children deserve opportunities for exploring mud, too! By doing so, they are developing concepts of what mud is and what it can do as well as strengthening muscles and developing the flexibility and control that they will need for manipulating and writing. Heuristic play will be covered in Chapter 6, which will include further considera- tion of the practicalities of enabling this to happen. Mud comes in so many forms. At a simple level, it is a smooth surface that enables the youngest children to experience the qualities of a mud floor. It is often cool, it is rarely as hard as concrete and it makes a good surface for dancing on. You can use it as a clean slate to provide a back- ground for creations and collections. On a hot day, it will cool you if you lay on it. Mix in more water and it becomes more malleable, but its properties will depend on what the soil is that you start with. Light soils do not stick together like heavy clay soils, which is an interesting discussion Figure 1.1 My name is anya 02-Knight-4133-CH-01.indd 11 22/12/2010 9:35:00 AM Co py ri gh t © 2 01 1. S AG E Pu bl ic at io ns L td . Al l ri gh ts r es er ve d. M ay n ot b e re pr od uc ed i n an y fo rm w it ho ut p er mi ss io n fr om t he p ub li sh er , ex ce pt f ai r us es p er mi tt ed u nd er