Macquarie University

Play-based Curriculum: Discovery and Creativity in Outdoor Environments - ECHE310

This unit examines the role of outdoor environments in providing opportunities for young children to engage in discovery and creative play and physical activity. The unit builds on students’ foundational understanding of play-based pedagogies to enhance their capacity to recognise, evaluate and design play-based environments and experiences that promote learning for children from birth to school age. The unit explores inter-relationships between affordances in the outdoor environment, children’s play behaviours and their learning, with a particular emphasis on relationship-based learning, scientific inquiry, problem-solving and physical activity. The unit requires students to engage critically with a range of relevant contemporary issues which have the potential to impact on children’s opportunities for learning and development. Students also consider issues of inclusive practice for children with different educational and developmental capabilities and with different social and cultural backgrounds.