Looking Closely, Caring Deeply with Hobson’s Bay

Naarm 📍

This inquiry explored children’s sensory engagement with a natural space near Hobson’s Bay as a means of deepening their awareness of relationships within the natural world. Beginning with children aged 5–6 years in 2025 and continuing in 2026 with a new cohort, the project invited children to slow down and notice – to listen, hear, and “feel” the environment around them – and to represent these sensory observations through graphic languages, sound, writing, and photography.

Through encounters with local flora and fauna, the children engaged in conversations about empathy, responsibility, and environmental stewardship. By creating an advisory booklet for families and the wider community, the children developed agency as advocates, sharing their understandings and communicating the importance of respectful co-existence with more-than-human life.