Early childhood education is crucial for the development of young children’s understanding of the natural world. Children have a role in sustaining a viable environmental and social future. This research interrogated key ideas concerning STEM education for sustainable development, drawing on seminal research and a range of government policy documents to formulate a futures-oriented approach to supporting children to build understandings in early childhood sustainability. Through the use of ethnography, a research methodology that uses both participation and observation of research participants, it became apparent that young children’s play-based learning enabled agentic responses in aligning with early understanding of STEM and sustainability. Using accepted descriptors of international Sustainable Development Goals within an early childhood research study, the research highlights how the development of interactive, learner-centred STEM teaching not only enables investigative, action-adapted learning, but also fosters independent learners who are responsive to their natural environment. The implication of this research is that further development of children’s environmental agency is suggested by the authors. The introduction of a whole-of-kindergarten approach that focuses on the systemic development of quality STEM education is posited as an avenue for educators to build young children’s understandings of sustainable development.

Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction and model-based reasoning, reflecting core disciplinary processes, and aimed at foundational concepts. The interdisciplinary structure of sequences in different topics, teacher pedagogy, and student reasoning and learning are illustrated through analysis of three learning sequence vignettes. In these topics both mathematical learning (measure, data modelling and spatial reasoning) and science learning (concepts and practices), were reinforced and enriched through the interdisciplinary framing. Drawing on notes of teacher planning and review meetings, coupled with classroom data, we identify (a) the conceptual and curricular design features through which mathematics and science can synergistically interweave, (b) the epistemological design challenges involved in working with teachers to achieve this interdisciplinary alignment, and (c) the key pedagogical design features that emerged to support this integration. The research contributes to conceptualising how interdisciplinary processes that enable synergistic interweaving of mathematics and science content and processes can be effectively framed and enacted.

Recruiting career changers into teaching has emerged as a part of a strategy by governments worldwide to address complex teacher shortage problems in hard-to-staff schools. In this paper, we present a case study of two career change teachers and trace their career journey into Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and the teaching profession in two separate hard-to-staff schools. We interviewed these teachers during the first 2 years of their career change journey. During this period, ‘push-and-pull’ factors impacted their intentions to stay in the profession. Challenges included inadequate school-level mentorship support, social-geographic isolation in a regional school setting during the COVID-19 remote learning and the more complex working conditions in hard-to-staff schools. The adverse impacts of these challenges were, to some extent, mitigated by the participants’ commitment to making a positive difference in the lives of children and young people through the teaching profession, a strong work ethic and support provided by their ITE programme in the form of university-based mentors and adjustment to study requirements. The participants responded to these push-and-pull factors in ways that highlighted their reflexive decision-making and determination to stay in teaching despite challenges. We discuss the implications of these findings for workforce planning strategies aimed at recruiting career change teachers in hard-to-staff schools.

Research demonstrates that powerful factors are involved in growing young girls’ STEM understandings. The development of a girl’s STEM identity relies on interaction with significant adults/others and the availability of a positive STEM learning environment. Undertaking research into bush kinders across 2015–2020, our data highlighted the learning that was occurring for young children four to five years of age. The children’s play dynamic was facilitating girls’ STEM identities and enabling STEM learning. Applying ethnography to this longitudinal study, data includes researcher observations of children and educators, interviews with educators and educators’ noticing . Using vignettes that demonstrate the STEM disciplines the girls were experiencing, we consider the opportunities that exist for girls’ development of a STEM identity in this context in Australian early years’ education. We argue that Australian bush kinder settings in Australia allow young girls to develop STEM identities through social interactions and that bush kinders act as enablers of STEM learning.

For over 50 years, the forest school approach to nature learning has gathered momentum in the UK and across parts of Europe including Scandinavia (Knight, 2016). In other contexts such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia, nature-based early childhood education and care settings, influenced by European forest school approaches, have begun to gain popularity. Opportunities for STEM education occur in nature-based settings, such as forest schools and nature kindergartens, yet this area has only garnered limited research attention to date. One such example of a nature kindergarten which emerged in the 2010s is Australian ‘bush kinder’ where 4- to 5-year-old preschool children experience and learn from nature. This paper arrives at an innovative conceptualisation of STEM teaching and learning in bush kinders. Through analysing research in early years STEM education, teacher pedagogy and early childhood learning, I propose a teaching and learning process that is replicable for similar nature-based early childhood education and care settings. Drawing on vignettes from ethnographic fieldwork data, the conceptualisation of an integrated approach to STEM teaching in bush kinders is illustrated. To frame the approach to STEM teaching, this analysis builds on the notions that STEM teaching and learning can take the form of a five-phased cyclical process. It is this process that contributes to the conceptualisation of STEM teaching and learning in early childhood education.

Research into pedagogical approaches used in early years’ nature education, more specifically European and UK forest schools, remains according to Leather, ‘undertheorised.’ In a similar situation in Australia, the bush kindergarten programmes (referred to as ‘bush kinders’), have had limited research attention. Influenced by European and UK forest school approaches, bush kinders are a recent development in Australian early years nature education. We discuss an ethnographic study where teaching and learning in three bush kinder settings was observed, each with different pedagogical approaches. The paper reports one main finding, where a wide range of pedagogical approaches were observed across the different bush kinder sites. To theoretically frame these pedagogical approaches, our analysis builds on Edwards’ notion of play-based learning, along with a model of inquiry-based teaching proposed by Furtak et al. Using ethnographic methods we draw on fieldwork data and research literature to analyse bush kinder pedagogies. The paper contributes to the conceptualisation of pedagogy in early childhood nature and bush kinder programmes.