Nature Pedagogy in Early Childhood - Spring - Gabby Millgate and the Woden Valley Early Learning Centre team

Registration is optional via Humanitix

Watch WVELC here

When: Saturday 26 September 2026 10:00 am – 1:00pm - tours every 30 mins

Where: Woden Valley Child Care Centre, 1 Dann Cl, Garran ACT 2605, Australia

Who: The session will be co-run by Gabby Millgate, and the Woden Valley Early Learning Centre team.

Cost: No cost

 

Event Information:

A special Floriade community showcase at Woden Valley Early Learning Centre (WVELC), celebrating 10 years of Nature Pedagogy at WVELC .

We would simply like you to come and experience it and imagine how a child would feel if they were part of planting a Floriade Garden

The event will celebrate the ways young children encounter nature, place, beauty, curiosity and belonging through early childhood education.

Each space will offer a different expression of Nature Pedagogy, children’s participation and ecological learning, with opportunities to move through the service, listen, observe and experience the environments for yourself.

This is not a workshop about nature pedagogy. It’s a chance to experience it—and take it back with you.

You might also like this - Online AAEE Professional Learning Course - Climate Strategies in Early Years - Insight to Implementation - September and October

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Country as Teacher Workshop 20th August 2026 with Monty Nixon

  

Booking link at Humanitix

When: Thursday 20th August 2026 4:00 – 6:30pm

Where: The Crosbie Morrison Room, Australian National Botanical Gardens

Who: The session will be co-run by University of Canberra PhD student Monty Nixon

Cost: AAEE members $30, non-members $60

Follow on with a Country As Teacher Practitioner Network course:https://www.catpn.com/what-we-offer/our-courses

 

Event Information:

For millennia, Country has been the central knowledge-holder in society, guiding people to live in relational reciprocity and maintaining social and ecological balance.

This workshop offers an introduction to Country as Teacher pedagogy and invites participants to begin considering its possibilities within Environmental Education. It provides a starting point for engaging with a way of knowing, being and doing that honours longstanding Indigenous knowledge systems.

Monty is one of two inaugural national Australian Association of Environmental Education (AAEE) JEDI's - Awardees of the Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion Award. He was also ACT's Emerging Environmental Educator for 2025. He is presently completing his PHD ‘Country as a Teacher’ at the University of Canberra.


Join us at ANBG to explore the above ideas and how they can be incorporated into your educational practice.

Why become a member of AAEE? https://www.aaee.org.au/get-involved/become-a-member/

Online AAEE Learning Circle - Children Need Nature - Making Children’s Access to Nature Visible in Early Learning - 12 August 2026 - Gabby Millgate

 

Booking link at Humanitix

When: Wednesday 12 August 2026 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST

Where: Zoom

Who: Co-hosted with AAEE and Gabby Millgate, Nature Pedagogy Leader at Woden Valley Early Learning Centre, author of the WVELC Children's Nature Access Survey tool, and an Early Years Climate Strategy author and pilot participant.

Cost: $10/$5 for non-AAEE members,  $0 for AAEE members and AAEE volunteers . Donations for this month's AAEE Learning Circle welcomed.

Follow on with an AAEE Professional Learning Course (3-part, online, September and October): https://events.humanitix.com/professional-learning-course-climate-action-in-early-learning

Event Information:

Children’s long-term wellbeing, resilience and environmental understanding are shaped by their everyday experiences with the natural world.

Following Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment (September 2025), there is growing recognition that children will need the knowledge, skills, dispositions and relationships that help them participate in a changing world.

Yet many educators and services are asking an important question:

How do we even start?

Online AAEE Professional Learning Course - Nature Connection for Primary School Educators - August and September

 

Booking link at Humanitix

When: Thursday 13 and 27 August and 10th September 2026 , 7-8.30pm AEST

Where: Zoom

Who: Dr. Lisa Siegel

Cost: AAEE members $180, non members $300 

Get in quick for one of 5 special ACT educators discount codes : ACT Member ($100 off, making it $80) = ACTMEMBER

ACT educator Non Member ($100 off, making it $200) = ACTPL

ACT Member: https://events.humanitix.com/nature-connection-for-primary-school-teachers?accesscode=ACTMEMBER 

ACT Non Member: https://events.humanitix.com/nature-connection-for-primary-school-teachers?accesscode=ACTPL

Event Information:

The research is in!

There is strong evidence that being outdoors at school demonstrates "a strong relationship with lower levels of anxiety" (de la Osa et al., 2024) and that "people with more personal contact with nature are more likely to engage in activities or behaviours that support and protect it" (Soga & Gaston, 2024).

Are you an educator who can see the benefits of nature connection for your students? Would you like to learn more about the hows and whys of teaching through/with nature?

Join us for an interactive online professional learning series designed to support educators bring nature connection into everyday teaching and learning.

Online AAEE Professional Learning Course - Climate Strategies in Early Years - Insight to Implementation - September and October

 

Booking link at Humanitix

When: 3 Wednesdays: 30 September, 14 and 28 October 2026 4.00-5.30 pm AEST

Where: Zoom

Who: Gabby Millgate

Cost: AAEE members $180, non-members $300

Event Information:

 A three-part online series for early childhood educators and leaders

Children are growing up in a changing climate, but early learning services are not always given the practical tools, time or support needed to respond.

This interactive professional learning series will help early childhood educators and leaders move from concern and good intentions to meaningful, achievable action.

Rather than prescribing a single approach, the series will support participants to examine their own context, listen to children, identify existing strengths and obstacles, and begin developing a climate strategy that works for their service.

Drawing on the Early Years Climate Strategy, the Access to Nature Survey, Build Your Climate Strategy and ten years of practice at Woden Valley Early Learning Centre, participants will explore how nature pedagogy, child participation and educational leadership can build climate adaptation capability from the earliest years.

Across three fortnightly online sessions, participants will reflect, share experiences, ask questions and apply the learning between sessions. The result is a supported implementation journey.

Why become an AAEE member? https://www.aaee.org.au/get-involved/become-a-member/