Nature play and STEAM

8 Sep 2025

Learning and playing in natural spaces both inside and outside early childhood settings are increasingly promoted as valuable for children’s education. With opportunities to extend learning outcomes related to STEAM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics] and the Exploration strand of Te Whāriki by going outdoors, our webinar with Professor Karen Malone encourages teachers to consider their role in children’s encounters with nature and nature play.

Engaging with the stories of Karen’s recent forays into the outdoors with children, and also drawing on her recent research, there is also an opportunity for teachers to reflect on and be attentive to the ethics of multi-species engagement. Karen shares how pedagogical practices such as ritual and gratitude, paying attention, attuning to nature, and documenting experiences through shared visual diaries, can help teachers notice and respond to the tensions and challenges that sometimes arise as they seek ethical ways to engage with the outdoors.

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Presenters

Professor Karen Malone

Dr Karen Malone is a Professor of Education, Environmental Philosophy, Geography, and Childhood Studies at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne Australia. She has been teaching and researching in children’s learning environments for nearly 30 years. Her doctoral thesis focused on supporting rich learning environments for children living in disadvantaged and degraded communities in Melbourne. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the United Nations on the project Growing Up In Cities, and later served as UNICEF’s global child researcher for the Child-Friendly Cities programme. She has engaged in research with thousands of children, most living in Indigenous and First Nations communities, who shared stories of growing up in challenging and often degraded environments. In her book Children In the Anthropocene she reflects on these stories and considers how children can live in deep relations with the planet.