Environmentalising early childhood education curriculum through pedagogies of play

In recent years the concept of child-centred play as an informant to the early childhood curriculum has been critiqued as an insufficient pedagogical approach for supporting children’s knowledge development. Running in parallel with these criticisms has been the emerging importance of environmental education in early childhood curriculum. A key aspect of early childhood environmental education involves children experiencing and acquiring various environmental concepts. This paper reports the findings from a project aimed at examining play-based learning and the way different types of play can be used as a pedagogical basis for supporting children’s learning in early childhood environmental education. The arguments about play-based learning and the role of environmental education in early childhood curriculum are framed in relation to the newly released Australian Early Years Learning Framework.