During my experience, I could not drown out the ever-present roar of the congested Brighton Road, visible and audible from every direction no matter how far I ventured into the parklands. Within my body, I experienced a physical and emotional rejection of this constructed environment that fenced off the park on all sides. I thought about my students and how they deserve the experience of being engulfed in nature, the privilege of forgetting the man-made world even just for a moment. I fixated on how this privilege was slowly being erased, plot by plot, paved road by paved road. The importance of the natural environment as part of my educational philosophy and its benefits for development remained at the forefront of my mind. The importance of conserving and protecting the precious pockets of ecological systems weighed on my heart as I moved towards the first pond. 

I moved slowly, as the detail unfolded around me, revealing hundreds of native flora and a chain of ponds that were linked as a large billabong teeming with native wildlife. I thought about how these bodies of water would fill up in the spring, and recede in the summer to follow the natural water cycle while providing a safe haven for all of the waterbirds, fish, reptiles, and more that called this their home. I wondered what it would be like if the land had never been greedily changed. I was drawn to the water, like the animals around me, listening to the rich tapestry of sounds that all married together, seamlessly fitting. The water danced with the wind, endless ripples travelling in complex patterns across the water’s surface, the movement of the bubbling streams between ponds capturing air bubbles that would travel between stones and currents to pop out the other end of the chain, and go on to travel somewhere else. I thought about the many hours I had spent by a billabong by my childhood home in Gubbi Gubbi Country, creating endless games and returning home just before dark. I felt so privileged to hold those memories. Chawla (2015, as cited in Wilson, 2018) affirms that natural areas provide opportunity for more creative, constructive, sensory, and socially cooperative play than asphalt, flat expanses of lawn, or built play equipment. 

As I walked, I was reminded of the wisdom and timelessness of the nature surrounding me. How the trees that swayed far above my head had watched many visitors go by, and many injustices occur. I felt the weight of my privilege standing on that land, the land that didn’t belong to me or my ancestors, the land that was wrongfully stolen and bled dry. Rossiter (2022) highlights the vast educational potential that First Nations music holds in building respectful and understanding perspectives of the world’s oldest continuous living culture and their displacement in so-called ‘Australia’. 

Ozkan (2021) explored the effects of drama-based activities on the environmental sustainability behaviours of 5-6 year old children. Ozkan asserts that the most critical point to begin environmental education is the early years, and affirms the effectiveness of drama as an educational tool to embed these values. The findings revealed the knowledge levels and awareness of environmental sustainability were significantly increased within the children in the study. Within another study, Aydin & Aykac (2016) also found that creative drama had a positive effect on environmental awareness within the age group of 4 years. Using this information, I am vehemently inspired to use the drama method as an investigative vehicle in which to further illuminate children’s awareness of environmental sustainability. 

I thought about the high level of individual agency that an environment like this provided in its open ended space. I would like to facilitate a way for children to connect the two non-linguistic modalities of music and movement in a way that suited each individual child and their capabilities and ways of embodying movement and/or reacting to music. Almeida (2015) investigated the empirical framework of Embodied Music Cognition in 4-5 year old children, highlighting the importance of embedding embodied music learning activities in the early years as to better equip children with the ability to link sound and movement in a fulfilling way. 

Aydın, Ö., Aykaç, N. (2016). Yaratıcı Drama Yöntemi ile Verilen Eğitimin Okul Öncesi Öğrencilerinin Çevre Farkındalığına Etkisi. Yaratıcı Drama Dergisi. 11(1), 1-16. 

Ozkan, B. (2021). The effect of drama-based activities on environmental sustainability behaviors of 60-72 months-old children. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET), 8(3).1486-1496. 

Rossiter, P. (2022). Using Protest Music in Your Classroom: Music provides an engaging medium to explore First Nations perspectives. Agora, 57(2), 54–56.

Wilson, R. A. (2018). Nature and young children : encouraging creative play and learning in natural environments / Ruth Wilson. Routledge.