Dipping your toes in the water: early childhood science learning at a beach kindergarten

Abstract The forest school approach to learning has gathered momentum in the UK and parts of Europe for well over 50 years. In other contexts such as Canada, China, New Zealand and Australia, nature-based early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings, influenced by European forest school approaches, are in a growth phase. While research attention is often given to ‘green spaces’ such as nature reserves, parklands and forests, less consideration has been given to the ‘blue spaces’. Blue spaces incorporate beaches and coastal environments and can be rich contexts for early childhood science education. One example of a nature-based approach to ECEC is the Australian ‘bush kinder’. Bush kinders are growing in number and educators have been observed to include sessions at beach environments as part of year-long bush kinder programmes. Beach kinders often involve four- to five-year-old preschool children and provide experiences to learn from and about the natural world through play in the water, on the sand and amongst coastal woodlands. This paper highlights the importance of educators in fostering science teaching and learning in the context of beach kinders. Through analysing early years science education research, guiding curriculum frameworks and early childhood learning, the importance of providing children with beach kinder opportunities to enhance understandings of early childhood science education is discussed. Drawing on vignettes from ethnographic data, gained through researcher participant observation, the benefits of educators scaffolding children’s of physical, chemical and biological science experiences present in coastal environments is considered in this paper.