Where water speaks and birds watch: Country as educator in children's museum spaces

This paper explores how outdoor museum environments, particularly those grounded in living relationships with Country, can act as co-educators in children's learning and development. Drawing on qualitative data from family focus groups at the University of Wollongong, located on Saltwater Wadi Wadi Country, the research examines how elements such as water, trees, birds, mist, and open space shape children's embodied, emotional, and relational experiences. Framed through Indigenous and Country-centred pedagogies, the study positions Country as an intelligent and communicative presence that teaches through sensory invitation, movement, and more-than-human relationships. Findings reveal that children's interactions with natural elements foster joy, reciprocity, and attunement—qualities that underpin relational learning and wellbeing. Parents described experiences of freedom, calmness, social connection, and sensory immersion, suggesting that outdoor museum environments can be analysed as relational spaces where pedagogical exchanges occur between children, families, and Country. The Early Start Discovery Space emerges not only as a museum but as a living site of mutual teaching and learning between children, families, and Country. This research contributes to early childhood education by offering a theoretical framework to interpret how learning with Country-centred pedagogies opens possibilities for reciprocal and ethical relationships with more-than-human kin. By weaving Indigenous frameworks of kinship, care, and relational ethics with posthuman and affective perspectives on play, the paper advances understandings of how informal learning in museum spaces can nurture ecological and spiritual capabilities in children. Through the voices of families and nonhuman beings the study demonstrates how Country continues to teach, inviting more relational and decolonising futures in early childhood education.