Chapter 8 provides insight into science learning that incorporates Indigenous Australian science knowledge and the roles of both culture and Indigenous Australian Ways of Doing. Social protocols, which underpin Indigenous Australian Knowledge, particularly in science, are discussed to provide background to non-Indigenous EC professionals. This chapter describes principles and strategies for EC professionals to embed Indigenous science into their settings. Cases of how practitioners have done this in various settings are presented.

It is clear from his extensive biological writings that Aristotle was deeply interested in life, including a vast range of living things, their parts, lifestyles, life processes, and environments. How are life and living beings, extensively described and explained in the biological writings, reflected in Aristotle’s ontology, his understanding of being? My question is prompted in part by the fact that some of Aristotle’s most important metaphysical concepts apply equally to living beings (animals) and to non-living beings (artifacts). In this chapter I develop an account of the theoretical significance of life and living beings that focuses on Aristotle’s distinction between two ways of being developed in Metaphysics Book 9 – being potentially and being actively.

This chapter investigates science learning from the stance of Indigenous Knowledge systems, acknowledging the role of cultural perspectives and Indigenous Ways of Doing. It introduces the importance of relationships, introduces relational pedagogy, culturally responsive pedagogy and the 8 Ways Aboriginal pedagogy framework and describes how these can be operationalised in early childhood science learning.