Nature Play Spaces

The physical characteristics of children’s preferred natural settings in Australian primary school grounds

Highlights •Children express interest in plant species that offer affordances to their play. •Children prefer the natural settings located along the edges of main play spaces. •The boundaries around the natural settings influence children’s play types in them. •Children are sensitive to the condition of plants and prefer them well-maintained. •Children do not often experience …

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Muddy Hands Australia Report

This report, written to support Australia’s Outdoor Classroom Day, sets out not only a snapshot report on how much more playtime Australian children are getting compared to everyone else, but also an overview of why outdoor learning and play is so very important.

Pop-up parks deliver big benefits in small spaces

‘Pop-up parks’ represent one possible means to help meet the demands of urbanites for more opportunities to connect with nature in their neighborhoods, serve important conservation functions by providing small-scale habitat refuges for a wide variety of threatened plants and animals in urban environments, and deliver a suite of ecosystem services to urban residents and wildlife alike.

The playful city: constructing a typology for urban design interventions

This article explores the intersection of scholarly findings on adult play with ludic urban interventions (those encouraging spontaneous and undirected playfulness). Playful urban design answers our innate need to explore, discover, experiment and even test our mental and physical boundaries.

Green Schoolyards Support Healthy Bodies, Minds and Communities

A growing body of evidence supports the claim that access to safe, natural areas improves health across a wide variety of areas, including heart health, mental health, weight management, ADHD, and stress among children. A concept gaining momentum in this realm is green schoolyards. But what is a green schoolyard?

The woods is a more free space for children to be creative; their imagination kind of sparks out there’: exploring young children’s cognitive play opportunities in natural, manufactured and mixed outdoor preschool zones

Abstract Outdoor preschools are critical for children’s play and development. Integrating observational and interview methods, this study examined four-to-five-year-old children’s cognitive play experiences in an outdoor preschool with natural, mixed and manufactured zones. The observational results indicated that the natural and mixed zones offered a diverse spectrum of cognitive play, were supportive of different learning …

The woods is a more free space for children to be creative; their imagination kind of sparks out there’: exploring young children’s cognitive play opportunities in natural, manufactured and mixed outdoor preschool zones Read More »

Children’s views and preferences regarding their outdoor environment

Abstract This study aims to enhance awareness of what young children want to do outside and their preferences regarding their outdoor environment. Views of children as active participants, the affordance of the environment and the importance of place for children’s learning constitute the theoretical background of the study. The study was part of a research …

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We Acknowledge
Nature Play WA acknowledges the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, as the custodians of the land where our team lives and works. We also acknowledge the traditional custodians throughout Western Australia and recognise the continuing connection of Indigenous people to their land, waters, sky, culture and community. We pay our respect to all Indigenous people of this land; ancestors, elders and young ones.