ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the early reception of nature study in Australia in the 1890s and early 1900s as educators came to realise the subject as an essential component of a reform agenda. A brief outline of reform in English-speaking countries beyond the United States reveals dynamic change in the provision of elementary education expressed in parallel local developments that were based upon transnational interchange of people, theories and practices. The first published texts of nature study written by Australian educators aimed to support the subject's introduction to Victorian schools in 1902. In these texts can be seen the Australian response to nature study as defined in the United States and already refined by the interchange of ideas between educators. The chapter focuses on the discussion in educational and agricultural journals about elementary science, elementary agriculture and, eventually, nature study, as topics of increasing relevance.
