NSW Early Years Nature Connections July Learning Circle - Learning with long necks: A story of activism and democracy

Join our free July Learning Circle—a dynamic space for early years educators, leaders, and advocates to come together and explore how young children can be powerful agents of change. Together, we’ll investigate an early childhood project that fosters sustainability, nature, democracy and activism, drawing on children’s curiosity, agency, and connections with the world around them.

Guided by shared inquiry, reflective dialogue, and collaborative support, this Learning Circle invites you to uncover inspiring practices, provoke new thinking, and co-create possibilities for action. Whether you're just beginning or already engaged in sustainability work with children, this is a space to grow ideas, strengthen values, and nurture hope.

In response to a turtle mystery at Whites Creek Wetlands, the Muruduwin preschool children at Explore & Develop Annandale courageously embarked on a 6-month journey to rediscover and reshape their sense of citizenship. This project, which facilitated an ongoing exchange of ideas and conversations among children, teachers, families, local artist Sharon Billinge, the Inner West Council, and the broader community, brought us closer to understanding “How do children exercise their civic rights?”.

At the peak of our three-year relationship with White’s Creek Wetlands, the children undertook an exceptional mission to co-design signage advocating for the eastern long-neck turtles, both the stolen and the existing. The children’s commitment to eco-advocacy, coupled with place-based pedagogy, resulted in a series of investigations at the Wetlands, particularly focusing on the life beneath, which sparked the children’s further interest in biodiversity, coexistence, and more.

In the midst of constructing our turtle knowledge and advocacy, Turtle Voting served as a testament to the children’s understanding of democracy, as they became their curators, leading the turtle selection process and exploring the political complexities of power dynamics.