Course Coordinator:Alison Black (ablack1@usc.edu.au) School:School of Education and Tertiary Access
UniSC Sunshine Coast |
Blended learning | Most of your course is on campus but you may be able to do some components of this course online. |
Please go to usc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
This course examines how early education can contribute to sustainable living and learning. Inspired by the textbook and initiatives that connect children to nature, community and environments, you consider strategies for working collaboratively with children, family and community towards connectedness, wellbeing and sustainability. Positioning children as active informed citizens, you explore current research and curriculum emphases in relation to sustainability, place, and environment to identify the rich contributions children can make to sustainable futures.
Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
Blended learning | |||
Learning materials – Learning materials offer options/opportunities for learner choice. You will engage and interact with an array of asynchronous materials and activities accessed through Canvas modules, course readings and required texts. | 2hrs | Week 1 | 9 times |
Tutorial/Workshop 1 – A blended learning approach is used to deliver this course, including a mix of interactive tutorials/workshops, and synchronous and asynchronous materials and activities accessed through Canvas. This course will be supported by technology-enabled learning and teaching. Additional modalities may support learning in this course. | 2hrs | Week 1 | 10 times |
200 Level (Developing)
12 units
Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Mapping Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | Professional Standard Mapping * Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership | |
1 | Identify the importance of social and natural environments for healthy development in the early years |
Knowledgeable Sustainability-focussed |
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.4, 6.2, 7.4 |
2 | Propose strategies which promote connectedness for young children and families and build environments in which young children can develop and flourish |
Knowledgeable Sustainability-focussed |
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.4, 6.2, 7.4 |
3 | Articulate a theorised and personalised professional commitment to creating responsive and healthy early childhood environments which contribute to personal, social, environmental and community sustainability |
Empowered Sustainability-focussed |
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.4, 6.2, 7.4 |
4 | Use authoritative sources and relevant literature to analyse and evaluate ideas about early education for sustainability |
Creative and critical thinker Sustainability-focussed |
1.1, 2.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.4, 6.2, 7.4 |
5 | Demonstrate an ability to use and apply effective communication strategies in a variety of contexts to produce and present quality and professional work. | Engaged |
CODE | COMPETENCY |
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership | |
1.1 | Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students and how these may affect learning. |
1.2 | Understand how students learn: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of research into how students learn and the implications for teaching. |
1.3 | Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds: Demonstrate knowledge of teaching strategies that are responsive to the learning strengths and needs of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. |
2.1 | Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area |
3.3 | Use teaching strategies: Include a range of teaching strategies. |
4.1 | Support student participation: Identify strategies to support inclusive student participation and engagement in classroom activities. |
4.4 | Maintain student safety: Describe strategies that support students’ wellbeing and safety working within school and/or system, curriculum and legislative requirements. |
6.2 | Engage in professional learning and improve practice: Understand the relevant and appropriate sources of professional learning for teachers |
7.4 | Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities: Understand the role of external professionals and community representatives in broadening teachers’ professional knowledge and practice. |
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
Enrolled in Program ED303
Not applicable
Not applicable
Not applicable
Standard Grading (GRD)
High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
Early feedback mechanisms will be embedded in weekly tutorial activities to support your success with this task. You can also use Canvas Discussions to engage in conversation about the focus and progress of your reflection and your guiding principles as an educator. In Week 3 there is opportunity to share your current draft with peers and gain formative feedback. In Week 6 you will share your completed narrative/creative work with your peers.
Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | Weighting % | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
All | 1 | Artefact - Creative | Individual | 50% | 2000 words or equivalent |
Week 6 | Online Submission |
All | 2 | Written Piece | Individual | 50% | 2000 words or equivalent |
Week 10 | Online Submission |
All - Assessment Task 1:Sustainability focused narrative or creative work (and sharing of this work with peers) | |
Goal: | The goal of this task is to consider your own experiences with nature, how these have influenced you, and will enhance your role as an educator. |
Product: | Artefact - Creative |
Format: | * Please refer to the Canvas site for this course for more detail. This assessment is founded on your reflection on your experiences with nature. It will be helpful to use the textbook, current research, & relevant early childhood curriculum framework emphases about sustainability, belonging and wellbeing as you reflect on your own childhood and adult encounters with nature and natural play spaces. Consider the significance of the concept of place and the environment your encountered as a child as you explore your connection with the environment (perhaps aesthetically, emotionally and spiritually). Did place have meaning for you? (Australian Curriculum: how places give meaning to people and are important to identity, belonging, wellbeing; the significance of the concept of environment; why some places are special; the important interrelationships and interactions between humans and the environment; and the significance of the concept of sustainability.) This task invites you to create a narrative or creative work to capture the connections, interconnections, and disconnections of your personal experiences with nature and the natural world, as well as your holistic thinking in relation to values, commitments, learning, living and wellbeing. You might consider how your experiences and relationships with nature and the natural world have supported your own experiences of belonging, wellbeing and connectedness, and any new educator inspirations arising from engagement with this task.. |
Criteria: |
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All - Assessment Task 2:Personal and Professional Position Paper | |
Goal: | The goal of this task is to articulate a personal and professional position about the importance of 'early education for sustainability' through discussion of a sustainability issue of your choice |
Product: | Written Piece |
Format: | * Please refer to the Canvas site for this course for more detail. This task invites you to create a persuasive research-informed personal/professional position statement on an ‘early education for sustainability’ issue of your choice. This issue should be one you find meaningful and relevant for your work as an early childhood educator and be linked to your short-term and long-term commitments for children and early childhood education. Your textbook has a range of topics and provocations which could be used as starting points. You could continue your exploration of the contribution of nature and the natural world to children’s health and wellbeing. Or, you could build upon course learning, such as promoting child-friendly communities or child-centred change movements in response to contemporary sustainability issues. Whatever your chosen topic, your textbook, current research, and relevant curriculum sustainability emphases and concepts will support you in identifying the rich contributions children can make to sustainable futures. Use this task as an opportunity to consider your educator values of care, respect and responsibility, and your roles and strategies for working collaboratively with children, family and community to engage with contemporary sustainabillity issues. Your teaching strategies may be responsive to learning opportunities that are planned and also to ‘in-the-moment’ teaching opportunities that might arise during classroom conversations and interactions. This task offers an opportunity for you to develop your information literacy skills and dispositions, recognise that information has value, and value the skills, time and effort needed to produce knowledge. |
Criteria: |
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A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
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Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
Please note that you need to have regular access to the resource(s) listed below. Resources may be required or recommended.
Required? | Author | Year | Title | Edition | Publisher |
Required | Julie M. Davis and Sue Elliott | 2024 | Young Children and the Environment | 3rd Edition | Cambridge University Press |
Not applicable
Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Eligibility for Supplementary Assessment Your eligibility for supplementary assessment in a course is dependent of the following conditions applying: The final mark is in the percentage range 47% to 49.4% The course is graded using the Standard Grading scale You have not failed an assessment task in the course due to academic misconduct
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