Though there has been a marked increase in research driven by posthumanist theory and inspired by the common worlds research approach, practical approaches to conducting this type of research have not been well documented and shared within the literature. This article explores the process of navigating the planning and conducting of research that…

Teaching science involves designing learning experiences that attend to a complex set of relationships between students, the discipline of science, and the places where science experiences are carried out. Unfortunately, with traditional approaches to K-12 science instruction, contributions to learning from students and places are often overlooked…

In response to dominant discourses of quality and an over-reliance on humancentric practice, the "Learning with Place" framework emerges as an innovative way to rethink practices, structures, and policies within education and beyond. 'Learning with Place' views the local Place as agentic, recognising Place as inclusive of local First…

Forest school and nature-based pedagogy have grown in popularity in recent years. Previously, I examined the perspectives of parents who chose to enrol their children within these programs to learn and understand why. As I furthered my studies, I became concerned about how these forest and nature schools connect to Indigenous ways of knowing,…

This case study discusses responsive walking methods from a yearlong river-child-walking project situated in early childhood education. Grounded by feminist anti-colonialism, this project reconfigured children's relations with a local river and challenged dominant, extractive methods of discovery. A behind-the-scenes approach is taken in this case…

Environmental education has the potential to extend its transformative potential by reframing social and ecological justice as always interconnected. This paper introduces vulnerable reading as a method for unsettling anthropocentric and colonial influences on how educators conceptualise and respond to environmental precarity through a…

This article delves into the intricate relationship between children's rights and the broader landscape of human and more-than-human rights in times of planetary pluri-crises. While acknowledging the historical significance of the United Nation adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as a late 20th-century milestone, this…

This article stems from participation in a TLRI research study, Renewing Participatory Democracy: Walking with Young Children to Story and Read the Land. It presents an account of the growing awareness of the place-based environmental and cultural relationship between Maunganui Kindergarten and Mauao.

Preschoolers have different experiences in different environments. These experiences can stimulate children's imaginations. This longitudinal study examines the impact of preschool children's three-year experiences in early childhood institutions, which are their primary educational environments. The question 'Do preschoolers imagine different…

Increasingly early years education recognises the value of engaging in natural play environments for young children's health and wellbeing. Whilst the focus of nature play usually centres around children's engagement in bush settings, this paper examines the connections between children's health and wellbeing, when beach settings become the play…

On a blustery day in March 2021, a line of bundled-up, masked first graders walked from school to a house on the National Register of Historic Places in their south Minneapolis neighborhood. For these 23 young learners, it wasn't just a walk. This COVID-era field trip was a culminating activity in a series of lessons, "Unearthing…

In a small village in the Ecuadorian Andes called Racar, plastics are intimately woven into social and ecological structures. These entanglements move beyond human control and generate toxic dependencies between humans, plastics, and others. This requires a pedagogical shift in how early childhood educators understand and respond to plastics.…

This article proposes the diffractive practice of blogging-with Place as an alternative to a reflective journal. Reflective practice is a priority for teachers, with reflective journaling often employed as a method for documenting a teacher's experiences and knowledge about sites that are intended for place-based teaching and learning. However,…

The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework advocates building civic competence in all students6 The C3 Inquiry Arc involves engaging students with compelling and supporting questions, using disciplinary content and skills to have students investigate these questions, evaluate sources they use along the way, and take action with their new…

This paper explores two concepts. Firstly, it explores how child-led photography was effectively used by as a research methodology with young children, aged three and four. Twenty children at two Australian preschools were given the opportunity to express how they experienced place at their early childhood educational. Each child was given a…