Amber Porter
Amber Porter, Glass House Mountains QLD
I have worked in early childhood education for about 9 years. My current role is 'Assistant Group Leader' in Schoolies.
My professional interests are…
STEM exploration, arts and crafts, healthy nutrition, sustainability, bush kindy, swimming lessons.
I am a fan of inquiry-based STEM learning because…
STEM is a part of our everyday life and can therefore be explored in various ways with all age groups. And children love exploring! I love the inquiry-based approach because it helps children to share ideas with others, interact with educational materials in an age-appropriate way and reflect on their learning.
My favourite Little Scientists workshop is…
Water because the children at my centre LOVE exploring water. Using what I’ve learned in the workshop about free and prompted ways to integrate the topic into everyday learning, I have been able to help educate staff about STEM learning with water in a sustainable way.
My favourite STEM exploration with children…
I love everything related to science. As I mainly work with school-aged children, we regularly engage in advanced science explorations and experiments. We practice hypothesising about the results of an experiment and I introduce new vocabulary that provides my little scientists with the correct scientific words for what they are doing.
Early education without STEM would be…
Boring! STEM is everywhere around us. If we want to introduce children to the world around them, STEM must be a part of their learning. It is so easy to integrate STEM because it is all around us and you don’t even need fancy materials because all you need is already available in the centre or at home.
In terms of STEM, I encourage my children…
Not to give up when they get stuck and to have another go. I generally like to challenge my children by presenting them with STEM problems. They love the problem-solving aspect of it.
My role in the children’s discovery and research is to…
To support the children when they need me. When the children are discovering, I like to think of myself as the person in the background occasionally asking open-ended questions and adding interesting details about the exploration.
