2026 marks a significant milestone: the 50th anniversary of NAIDOC Week. This year’s theme, “Fifty Years of Deadly”, is an opportunity to reflect on the stories, marches, languages, art, and leadership that built the NAIDOC movement, while recognising the communities that continue to shape its future. Visit the official NAIDOC Week website for more information.
NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for educators to recognise and explore the STEM knowledge embedded within First Nations cultures, communities, and Country. This helps children understand that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are not only contemporary disciplines, but also reflected in the rich knowledge systems developed by First Nations peoples over thousands of years. Read on for practical ideas for exploring First Nations STEM knowledge with young children.
Don’t forget to share your NAIDOC Week reflections and ideas with educators all over Australia in Little Scientists’ Facebook group “Early STEM Educators Network”.
Book Recommendation: Afloat
We recommend reading Afloat by Gunai author Kirli Saunders and illustrator Freya Blackwood.
The story follows an Elder as she guides a child along local waterways, sharing her People’s knowledge and teaching the child to weave a communal raft. Through this journey, Afloat explores connection, learning, and community, showing how people of different ages, cultures, and genders can come together through a shared purpose.
In her author’s note, Saunders explains that while the book explores climate change, particularly the impact of rising sea levels on First Nations communities, it emphasises collaboration, resilience, and hope rather than placing the burden of this issue on children. In doing so, Afloat helps children engage with complex ideas in a way that feels safe and empowering.
Afloat STEM explorations
🛶 Investigate weaving and materials
Explore the weaving process depicted in the book — from collecting vines to soaking materials, rolling fibres, and weaving them together. Provide opportunities for children to experiment with a range of materials, including natural fibres (such as grasses, vines, leaves, bark, and thin twigs), ribbons, fabric scraps, paper, and cardboard. Which materials are strongest or most flexible? Can different materials be combined to create something stronger? Encourage children to consider:
- Why do we soak the materials?
- Are some colours, fibres, or vines more suitable for making a raft than others?
- What properties make a material useful for weaving?
❤️ Explore First Nations weaving traditions
Weaving traditions vary across First Nations communities, with different materials and techniques reflecting local environments and cultural practices. Explore examples from different communities and invite children to compare them. What similarities and differences do they notice? Questacon’s weaving resource may be a useful starting point.
🧶 Look for weaving in everyday life
Invite children to hunt for woven objects throughout your setting, such as bags, rugs, baskets, and clothing. What patterns can they find? Do they notice similarities between these woven structures and those shown in the book?
Afloat theme: Stronger together
A central theme of “Afloat” is that people are stronger when they work together. Just as many fibres weave together to make a strong raft, individuals can collaborate to achieve more than they could alone. The concept of collaboration is a rich opportunity for STEM learning. For example, children can investigate how combining materials changes their strength, flexibility, and function and compare the strength of a single strand of fibre with multiple strands twisted or woven together.
You can see this idea explored in the video below, in which Tammy from Bagdad Education and Care (Tasmania) shares their award-winning inquiry-based STEM project “Will the rope break under our weight?”. During the project, children investigated the properties of rope and how fibres become stronger when working together — just like people!
Discussing climate change with older children
Afloat may prompt older children to ask questions about climate change, creating opportunities for thoughtful conversations about its effects, including the impact of rising sea levels on some First Nations communities.
Alongside these discussions, it is important to recognise and build on the ways children are already caring for the environment in your setting. Educators can then explore practical actions that support sustainability and care for Country, helping children see themselves as capable contributors to positive change. Read our resource “Sparking climate conversations with children” for more guidance.
Engage with First Nations perspectives
As always, it’s essential to engage with stories, ideas, and information created and told by First Nations people. To support this, Little Scientists has compiled a list of First Nations organisations working in and around the early childhood education that you can learn more about:
- DeadlyScience
- SNAICC – National Voice for our Children
- The Koori Curriculum
- Yarn Strong Sista
- Narragunnawali
🟠 Connecting with local First Nations communities
Many services choose to connect with their local First Nations community and Elders when embedding First Nations perspectives. This can be a valuable way to build relationships and deepen understanding, but it is important to approach these connections with respect and care, particularly if you are reaching out for the first time. Common Ground has developed this resource to support services in building meaningful and culturally respectful relationships.
🟠 Listen to Little Yarns
The ABC Podcast series “Little Yarns“ has been developed for preschoolers and adults to listen to together, with the themes of many of the episodes rich with opportunities for STEM explorations.
🟠 Learn about First Nations STEM innovations.
As Koori Curriculum writes here “When educators hear “STEM,” they often picture robotics kits, coding apps, lab coats and magnifying glasses. What they don’t always see is this: First Nations peoples are the world’s first scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. For over 65,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have observed, tested, refined, calculated, engineered and innovated in ways that sustained complex societies across this continent.”
Learn more about First Nations innovations like fish traps, bush medicine, and firestick farming on websites like:
Online PD: “The Noongar Six Seasons”
In this 60 minute online PD, Aboriginal Education Officer Cyril Yarran introduces the Noongar Six Seasons — a knowledge system used for thousands of years — and shares how observing seasonal shifts can inspire young children’s STEM investigations. Join us live on 19 June 2026 or via recording to:
- Explore culturally responsive, place-based practices.
- Deepen children’s connection to Country.
- Identify seasonal indicators.
- Investigate environmental changes.
- Observe change on Country.
- Explore culturally respectful provocations.
More online PD: Embedding First Nations perspectives
Evidence-based STEM professional development:
- In-person STEM workshops.
- In-service STEM workshops.
- Online STEM workshops.
- Online STEM Hours.
- Certify as a Little Scientists House.
