Children’s Place in Sustainability Education

Abstract

Clayton is four years old and goes to Kurri Kurri Preschool in a rural coal mining area outside of the industrial town of Newcastle, about two hours north of Sydney on the east coast of Australia. Kurri Kurri is surrounded by coal mines, and the Newcastle Harbour has massive coal loading docks, a new and even bigger one being constructed by Chinese interests. In the sea off the coast of Newcastle, sleeping barges wait to enter the harbour and receive their load of black coal to carry over the sea to the harbours of the coal buyers in Asia. Clayton is inevitably and irreversibly connected to their worlds. The director of his preschool welcomes others to come into the school to work with the children; it is a bustling place full of life and child energy. The children have made a brightly coloured fairy garden with patterns of multicoloured recycled plastics arranged in patterns in between the succulent plants. In an inside room, a little boy sits quietly painting with an educator who talks to him about the figure on a motor bike. The child says, ‘that’s my brother, it’s a picture for his birthday’. In the yard outside, a group of children around a metal water tank on a stand wield hoses, pipes and containers, laughing, shouting as they duck the streams of water coming at them. Two others sit inside a temporary fence of wire mesh, one holding a grey furry guinea pig close to her chest.

This blue circle is my world. The green part is Australia where I live. The anchors are holding onto the world ‘cause there is rubbish on Australia. The world is supposed to move slowly but it is moving really fast to get rid of all the rubbish so the anchors have to hold it in place and only the rubbish will fly off.

(Clayton Cole, Kurri Kurri Preschool)