Improving the Landscape for Children

Description

Learning Objectives:

1. To identify benefits to children’s health and well-being linked to play generally, play outdoors, and spending time in naturalistic settings
2. To explain why researchers today and leading playground designers for generations have looked at risk in children’s landscapes as something to be managed thoughtfully, rather than eliminated completely.
3. To identify the need for understanding of ASTM Standards and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Public Playground Safety Handbook before designing or locating playground equipment for children.
4. To describe opportunities to improve landscapes for children, such as integrating construction play, introducing sculptable materials, facilitating hiding games, adding loose parts that can contribute to imaginative play, planting shade trees, integrating play and learning settings that provide ecological services, and creating loops that allow for more continuous movement.
5. To explain ways that I may serve as a resource to representatives of childcare facilities, communities, and schools interested in improving their landscapes and incorporating nature play and ecological services into them and begin dialogue with them.

Itinerary: 1 hour training followed by optional 30 minute question and answer period.