Country as teacher in the development of cross-cultural Indigenous science environmental education

Place-based education and the co-constitution of humans and others with place through custodial management are central to First Nations’ science. The inclusion of First Nations perspectives in the Australian Science Curriculum reflects the need to move towards a research, teaching and learning space that can successfully operate between Indigenous and western knowledge systems. Working between these knowledge systems involves researchers and educators translating curriculum requirements into meaningful, culturally authentic best practice in relation to First Nations. This chapter will provide resources for cross-cultural science and river habitat sustainability capabilities for the primary and middle school years. Using the case site of the Riverina, on Wiradyuri Country in southern New South Wales in Australia, the chapter explains how Indigenous approaches to place-based education can be used to embed First Nations scalable and adaptive sustainable practices into school curriculum and to foster sustainable river management in school communities. This is achieved by centring First Nations expertise to place-based education and fostering reflexive practice on how non-Indigenous peoples come to view themselves as placed on Indigenous Country and their responsibilities as a result of this placement.