Did you know your outdoor environment is rich with opportunities to engage children in early STEM learning, such as digging in soil to find worms, observing the intricate patterns of leaves, or building insect shelters from natural materials. Every moment in nature invites children to inquire, discover, and problem-solve! As the weather warms up, take this opportunity to cultivate children’s curiosity about the STEM in nature. Read on for age-appropriate STEM ideas to support children to explore nature in your own service or classroom.
Don’t forget to share your own nature play explorations with us! Join Little Scientists’ Facebook group “Early STEM Educators Network” to exchange STEM ideas with educators all over Australia.
Build wildlife-friendly yards
Cultivate your own wildlife-friendly garden and get your children involved every step of the way, including research and building!
🍃 Find out which plants are native to your local area and which ones are most loved by native wildlife. To get you started, a wonderful source of knowledge is your local Indigenous community: you could speak to Indigenous families in your service or a local First Nations Elder. Alternatively, you can contact your local land council for advice, for instance: in NSW.
🍃 Build bird baths in your service’s outdoor area with your children using old bowls, pots, or other everyday materials. Prompt the children to think: What types of birds visit your outdoor area? What type of baths would they like? Watch this video on the basics of keeping a bird bath. To extend this, you can also put out smaller vessels such as bottle lids for thirsty insects.
🍃 Discuss the different shapes, sizes, and functions of animals’ homes. Do some animals prefer more light in their habitat? Do some prefer more moisture? Note: Children love to collect shells, twigs and rocks, but we can never be sure which creatures have already claimed them! Share with the children that these ‘souvenirs’ might be someone’s home and that it is better not to remove things from the environment.
🍃 Find out which plants are native to your local area and which ones are most loved by native wildlife. To get you started, a wonderful source of knowledge is your local Indigenous community: you could speak to Indigenous families in your service or a local First Nations Elder. Alternatively, you can contact your local land council for advice, for instance: in NSW.
🍃 Support your children to build an insect hotel. An insect hotel is a collection of small hollows for native insects, such as bees, to rest and lay eggs. You can make one using everyday materials:
- A large plastic bottle, with the top and bottom cut off to create a cylinder (adult supervision required)
- Natural materials like sticks, bark, seedpods, or leaves from your outdoor space
- String
Instructions
- Support your children to draw a blueprint of their design or build a prototype with blocks. Prompt them to think about specifications such as the size, structure, and colour of the hotel. Consider what the insects might like and where it should be in your space.
- Collect natural materials from your outdoor space. Invite the children to go on a nature walk to collect materials (it’s best to use what you have around your setting as this is what the local insects will prefer).
- Encourage the children to categorise the materials. For example, by width, length, weight, or colour.
- Insert string into one side of your plastic bottle and tie a knot to make a loop. This will enable you to hang the hotel!
- Invite the children to place their natural materials into the bottle, allowing plenty of spaces for insects to rest.
- Place the insect hotel in your outdoor space. Over the next few weeks, observe which insects visit!
Observe nature’s visitors
The more children learn about their crawling, jumping, flying and swimming neighbours, the better they can appreciate them! Observing the Australian wildlife helps build a stronger connection between the children and the natural world around them.
🔎 Set up camp inside or in a dedicated spot in the outdoor area for animal observations. The children might want to spend a few minutes every morning observing movement outside using a notebook for drawings or even an iPad to record videos.
🔎 Invite the children to share their observations over time. Throughout the weeks and months, they will begin to recognise the patterns and routines of their favourite species. They might even see the same animals everyday.
Encourage sustainable routines
Being mindful of the waste we produce is also important for children to feel connected to nature!
🗑️ Encourage children to dispose of rubbish in a bin and to encourage the children and adults around them to do the same.
🗑️ Collect clean recyclable materials such as paper towel rolls and empty cartons. Use these repurposed materials in arts and crafts with the children!
🗑️ Set up a composting bin in your outdoor area and invite the children to add food scraps to it, then observe the decomposition process over time.
Develop your STEM skills with pedagogy-based STEM PD:
- Browse our in-person STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM Hours.
- Book an in-service workshop for your team.
- Book a STEM Family Workshop for your families.
