LITTLE GREEN STEPS WA

SUPPORTING Education FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN THE EARLY YEARS

The Little Green Steps WA is a not for profit program that supports Education for Sustainability (EfS) in early learning centres in Western Australia. This includes childcare centres, preschools, family day care, kindergartens, after school care and long day care services for children aged 0-8 years.

Little Green Steps WA helps Centres/Services/Schools:

Learn about what ‘sustainability’ means and how to embed it into your practice. We help you understand why establishing sustainable practices in the early years in important.

We do this by helping you:

• Minimise waste and optimise recycling efforts
• Use food scraps in compost bins or worm farms
• Involve children in growing plants and vegetables
• Maintain natural play spaces
• Explore Australia’s environments, wildlife and native plants
• Integrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture
• Save water
• Reduce energy use
• Choose environmentally friendly cleaning methods
• Develop environmental policies
• Learn about environmental issues and contribute to their solutions
• Access resources and maintain links with relevant networks

History of LGSWA

Little Green Steps is an initiative of the Gosford City and Wyong Shire Councils in New South Wales. In 2012 the Australian Association for Environmental Education WA Chapter was successful in gaining a Lotterywest grant to run a 12 month pilot of Little Green Steps, which began in July 2012. The Western Australian pilot directly supported sustainability learning and practice in three not-for-profit childcare centres, one each in the cities of Canning, Gosnells and Armadale. This pilot proved to be very successful.

During the ‘Pilot Phase’ there was a lot of interest shown from other educators who were facing similar challenges in implementing sustainability in their day to day learning. Because of this interest Little Green Steps ran 4.5 hour workshops in Perth and Albany. These workshops were very popular and very well received.

In 2014 LGSWA received another grant from Lotterywest to begin the implementation phase of the program. Little Green Steps WA (LGSWA) was officially launched during the year and now has a new look and logo. A new partnership with the City of Cockburn was formed as part of a trial with a local government focus where LGSWA ran specific workshops within the community. Connecting early years staff with local recourses to support them with meeting EYLF and NQS requirements is one of LGSWA’s main goals. This trial partnership has shown that working closely with your local government can prove to be very successful in obtaining this goal.

LGSWA now works in partnership with the City of Cockburn, City of Armadale and City of Canning to implement this program in these Local Government areas. Waste workshops are also available through a partnership with the Waste Authority.