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Project Sustainability Collective Podcast
Project Sustainability Collective Podcast
Hosted by Lili-Ann Kriegler and Bronwyn Cron
Welcome to the Project Sustainability Collective Podcast, where early childhood pedagogy and sustainability education come together, positioning ECEC educators as the critical leverage point for planetary change.
Hosts Lili-Ann, author and expert in early childhood pedagogy, play, and project-based learning, thinking skills, and leadership, and Bronwyn Cron, author and expert in STEM and sustainability education, bring together decades of combined expertise. They work together to explore how educators simultaneously shape child development and environmental futures, and regularly host sustainability and education thought leaders to enrich our listeners' podcast experience.
Our Approach:
Grounded in research with 200+ Australian ECEC services, we explore sustainability holistically across five interconnected domains: environmental, social, economic, cultural, and leadership/governance. Through our Sustainability Impact Accelerator framework, we help you recognise your significance, deepen your thinking, and expand your influence, accelerating change that ripples from your service outward to children, families, communities, and ultimately transforms policy and culture.
What We Explore:
Thought-provoking, evidence-based insights connecting brain development to environmental consciousness, practical frameworks like our Sustainability Discovery Framework, and approaches to embedding the EYLF 2.0 Sustainability Principle into everyday practice. We examine play-based learning, place-connected pedagogies, project development, team engagement, courageous planning, and how to integrate sustainability into your quality improvement plans.
Who This Is For:
Early childhood educators, educational leaders, directors, pedagogical leaders, sustainability coordinators, policy makers, and anyone who recognises that supporting optimal child development during the grounding years IS the most powerful sustainability education possible.
Our Promise:
We combine intellectual rigour with practical application, honouring your professionalism whilst providing frameworks and language that validate what you already know works. We help you see that you're not doing two separate jobs—child development and sustainability are the same work viewed from different angles.
You are architects of possibility, working at the intersection where human development and planetary futures meet.
Join us as we accelerate education for sustainability, positioning ECEC educators where you belong—at the centre of the conversation about planetary futures.
Acknowledgement of Country:
We respect the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land of the Kulin Nation groups, the Boonwurrung and Bunurong people, where I live, learn, and work.
We also respect the people and cultures from across the globe who live and work for the optimistic future of this unique island continent, Australia. May we all walk gently into the future.
#ProjectSustainabilityCollective #EarlyChildhoodEducation #EducationForSustainability #ECEC #SustainabilityEducation #EarlyYears #ChildDevelopment #SystemsThinking #EarlyChildhoodLeadership #PlayBasedLearning #ProjectBasedLearning
Project Sustainability Collective Podcast
More Than Just Fun: How Music Builds Literacy, Numeracy, and Well-being (Ep 22)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This March, we explore the Arts in early childhood education with Anne Belcher, a music educator with 20+ years of experience who founded Branch into Music near Ballarat after discovering music's soothing power on her own baby.
Anne explains that every child is born musical and shares her "musical tree" framework with five essential branches: keeping the beat, singing, playing instruments, movement, and listening. She offers simple, accessible strategies for educators of all skill levels to incorporate music throughout the day, emphasising that you don't need to be a professional musician to enrich children's lives.
Music develops cognitive skills across multiple domains—steady beats support early literacy and reading skills, nursery rhymes build vocabulary and memory, and activities like using Frisbees as instruments develop mathematical concepts through patterns and sequencing. Music naturally integrates numeracy through counting beats, making learning feel like play rather than formal instruction.
At Federation University, Anne teaches pre-service teachers that "making music makes us happy," creating a foundation for learning and meaningful relationships. During COVID lockdowns, she adapted to online teaching, reaching more educators and children than ever.
Anne shares that children respond to sounds from 16 weeks of gestation, with their mother's heartbeat being their first musical experience—an innate musicality that any educator can nurture, regardless of perceived musical ability.
Join host Lili-Ann Kriegler for this uplifting conversation that will put a spring in your step and music in your heart!
Anne’s contacts and a generous free resource:
Special Offer – FREE MASTERCLASS for “For Your Ears” Listeners: “Boom! Crash! Bang! Using musical instruments most effectively with our early learners”: https://www.branchintomusic.online/offers/269ZigAP
Website: https://www.branchintomusic.online/
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/@BranchIntoMusic
Join host Lili-Ann Kriegler for this uplifting conversation that will put a spring in your step and music in your heart!
#EarlyChildhoodEducation #MusicEducation #EarlyYears #ChildDevelopment #TeacherResources #ECE #PreschoolMusic #MusicalLearning #EarlyLiteracy #EarlyMaths #ChildhoodArts #PlayBasedLearning #EarlyLearning #TeacherPD #NurseryRhymes
Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast so you can receive valuable insights and discussions in the future!
For more information about Lili-Ann Kriegler, go to:
Kriegler-Education
https://www.kriegler-education.com
+61438489032
Follow Lili-Ann
I respect the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land of the Kulin Nation groups, the Boonwurrung and Bunurong people, where I live, learn, and work.
Lili-Ann Kriegler (B. A Hons, H. Dip. Ed, M.Ed.) is an award-winning author and Melbourne-based education consultant. Her books are 'The Power of Play' for educators and 'Roots and Wings' for parents. Lili-Ann’ is a leader in early childhood education (birth to years), leadership and optimising human thinking and cognition. She runs her consultancy, Kriegler-Education. She is passionate about the early childhood sector and believes in the transformational power of education.
Find out more at https://www.kriegler-education.com.
