INTRODUCTION:

Welcome to the Support & Encourage Children to Connect with the Natural Environment course. This course only includes a challenge assessment designed to assess your knowledge and skills required to demonstrate competence in creating intentional opportunities for children to learn about, explore and respect the natural environment, and in designing indoor and outdoor experiences that strengthen children’s appreciation of nature while embedding practical sustainability actions and required service obligations.

Supporting children to connect with the natural environment involves more than providing outdoor play; it requires educators to intentionally guide children’s curiosity about the interdependence between people, plants, animals and the land, and to model respectful care for both natural and constructed environments. Educators build connection through meaningful conversation, purposeful experiences, and access to accurate information and resources, while also embedding sustainability into everyday routines. This work is important because children’s early experiences with nature influence wellbeing, physical health, social and emotional development, and lifelong attitudes to environmental responsibility, and services have a responsibility to ensure learning experiences are safe, inclusive and aligned to required quality expectations.

The course assessment focuses on your ability to identify and use opportunities to discuss the natural environment with children, apply intentional teaching strategies and open-ended questioning to build understanding, and model respect and care through your behaviour, routines and interactions. You will be required to demonstrate how you provide children with information and access to resources about environmental impacts, embed relevant perspectives respectfully and appropriately, and plan experiences that enable children to explore and learn through direct engagement with natural and constructed environments.

This assessment will confirm your understanding of how to identify and embed Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples’ connection with and use of the natural environment within age-appropriate experiences, and how to promote the use of natural and recycled materials in learning environments in line with service policies, procedures and the needs of planned experiences. It will also assess your ability to plan and provide opportunities for children to explore natural environments and constructed environments within the local community context, and to design indoor nature-based experiences that encourage children’s knowledge, appreciation and positive engagement with the natural environment.

You will also be assessed on your capability to design outdoor nature-based experiences that encourage children’s knowledge, appreciation and positive engagement with the natural environment, and to identify opportunities for children to reduce their impact on the natural environment through practical actions embedded in play and everyday routines. This includes supporting children to demonstrate respect for the natural environment through agreed expectations, shared care practices and consistent educator guidance, and providing children with opportunities to experience the growth and care of living things through observation, participation and responsibility-based tasks. The assessment will also examine your ability to apply requirements relevant to the physical environment and relationships with children in line with the National Quality Standard, related regulations and applicable laws, explain the benefits of nature play for child development, health and social and emotional learning, and locate and use suitable sources of information about the natural environment, including researching using digital media, to support accurate and informed practice.

By successfully completing this course assessment, you will have demonstrated that you can create purposeful opportunities for children to learn about the natural environment, apply intentional teaching and questioning to build understanding, model respectful care through everyday practice, embed appropriate perspectives and community knowledge within age-appropriate experiences, design and facilitate indoor and outdoor nature-based learning, integrate sustainability actions into routines, support children to care for living things, and apply required quality and regulatory expectations using accurate information sources—confirming your readiness to support and encourage children to connect with the natural environment in an education and care setting.

TOPICS COVERED IN THIS ASSESSMENT:

This course assessment is based on the following topics:

1.    Identify and use opportunities to discuss the natural environment and the interdependence between people, plants, animals and the land with children.

2.    Use intentional teaching strategies and open-ended questioning to build children’s understanding of the natural world through conversation and reflection.

3.    Model respect, care and appreciation for natural and constructed environments through educator behaviour, routines and interactions with children.

4.    Provide children with information and access to resources about the environment and the impact of human activities on natural environments.

5.    Identify and embed Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples’ connection with and use of the natural environment within age-appropriate experiences.

6.    Promote the use of natural and recycled materials in learning environments in line with service policies, procedures and the needs of planned experiences.

7.    Plan and provide opportunities for children to explore natural environments and constructed environments within the local community context.

8.    Design indoor nature-based experiences that encourage children’s knowledge, appreciation and positive engagement with the natural environment.

9.    Design outdoor nature-based experiences that encourage children’s knowledge, appreciation and positive engagement with the natural environment.

10. Identify opportunities for children to reduce their impact on the natural environment through practical actions embedded in play and everyday routines.

11. Support children to demonstrate respect for the natural environment through agreed expectations, shared care practices and consistent educator guidance.

12. Provide children with opportunities to experience the growth and care of living things through observation, participation and responsibility-based tasks.

13. Apply requirements relevant to the physical environment and relationships with children in line with the National Quality Standard, related regulations and applicable laws.

14. Explain the importance of the natural environment and the benefits of nature play for child development, health, and social and emotional learning, including implications of non-exposure to nature.

15. Locate and use suitable sources of information about the natural environment, including researching using digital media, to support accurate and informed practice.

ABOUT THIS ASSESSMENT-ONLY COURSE:

This Assessment-Only course is designed for experienced professionals who already have a solid understanding of this subject area and simply wish to verify and document their existing knowledge. Instead of working through learning resources, you will go straight to a quiz that assesses your current competency in this field.

ASSESSMENT FORMAT & SUBMISSION ATTEMPTS:

This course assessment consists of a 20-question multiple-choice & true-or-false quiz with unlimited submission attempts during your enrolment period.

ESTIMATED COMPLETION TIME & VALIDITY:

The typical time to complete this assessment is approximately 10-15 minutes. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months from the date of purchase.

CERTIFICATION:

Upon successful completion of this course assessment, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.