Learning Circle: Children Need Nature. Making Children’s Access to Nature Visible in Early Learning
AAEE Learning Circle
Children Need Nature: Making Children’s Access to Nature Visible in Early Learning
Guest Speaker: Gabby Millgate
When: Wednesday 12 August, 4-5pm AEST
Where: Online via Zoom
Cost: Free for all AAEE Members.
Registration for non-members is $10 for waged/$5 student/unwaged
Want to tune in but can't make the live session? Register anyway, you'll receive the session recording to your inbox. Also available for members in AAEE Member Portal.
What to expect
Children’s long-term wellbeing, resilience and environmental understanding are shaped by their everyday experiences with the natural world.
Following Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment (September 2025), there is growing recognition that children will need the knowledge, skills, dispositions and relationships that help them participate in a changing world.
Yet many educators and services are asking an important question:
How do we even start?
This interactive Learning Circle introduces the Access to Nature Survey, a practical tool designed to help educators observe, reflect on and make visible children’s experiences of nature in early learning settings.
Together we will explore:
Why access to nature matters for children’s learning, wellbeing and development.
The connection between access to nature, ecological literacy and climate adaptation capability.
What meaningful access to nature looks like in everyday practice.
How educators can identify opportunities, barriers and strengths within their own settings.
Ways to use the Access to Nature Survey as a starting point for reflection, planning and improvement.
Access to nature is not a destination. It is a practice that sets foundational environmental relationships. It grows through everyday opportunities for children to participate in the living world.
Participants will leave with practical ideas, a tool they can immediately use in their own context, and opportunities to connect with other educators interested in strengthening children’s relationships with the natural world.
No specialist environmental education knowledge is required.
As the world changes, children’s access to nature is no longer simply an environmental issue, it is a developmental, educational and resilience issue.
Access to Nature Survey in Action
Lineup
Gabby Millgate
Gabby Millgate is Nature Pedagogy Leader at Woden Valley Early Learning Centre and President of the Australian Association for Environmental Education (ACT). Based in Canberra on Ngunnawal Country, she works with children, educators and communities to make nature, care, risk, repair and ecological learning part of everyday early childhood education. With more than a decade of experience leading nature-based learning, Gabby is passionate about helping children develop the confidence, capability and connection they need to participate in a changing world. She is the creator of the Access to Nature Survey, a child voice tool designed to make children’s experiences of nature visible in early learning settings, and the author of The Book Book Book: Chickens in Early Childhood Settings. In 2026, Gabby launched the Early Years Climate Strategy at Climate Action Week Sydney, advocating for children’s access to nature, ecological literacy and climate adaptation capability as essential foundations for the future. Gabby has previously presented: - ECA Conference 2020 - Children’s Education and Care Assurance (CECA the ACT regulatory body ) 2023 - ACT Inquiry into Climate Change and a Just Transition 2024 - Murdoch University 2026 - Outdoor Learning ACT/NSW Conference 2026 - Community Early Learning Australia (CELA) 2026 - Also Briefings for The National Children’s Commissioner Deb Tsorbaris and ACT Human Rights Commissioner Dr. Penelope Mathews 2026
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
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