Related/Get out and play!

Remember when your mom used to tell you to "go outside and play?" Unfortunately, that's not happening as much anymore.

Children, on average, spend less than 30 minutes a week in outdoor unstructured play. Children's contact with nature helps to ease attention-deficit disorder, aids cognitive development, enhances creativity, and reduces stress. And of course, with obesity at a critical level in this country, kids need to be running around outside now more than ever.

An exciting step forward is the recent passing of the No Child Left Inside Act H.R. 3036 and S. 1981. The Act requires K-12 school systems to strengthen environmental education curriculums, provide teacher training, and provide federal grant money for schools to pay for environmental education. The NCLI act provides $100 million a year to support this work in participating school systems.

See some of our blog posts on children’s gardens and play.

Here are links to some great organizations, websites, and blogs about children, outdoor space, and play. Have more suggestions? Tell us so we can add to this list.

• The Children & Nature Network (founded by Last Child in the Woods author Richard Louv) - childrenandnature.org (in my opinion, one of the best resources out there; excellent articles and lists of links).
• American Society of Landscape Architects' Children's Outdoor Environments Professional Practice Network
• The Child & Nature Alliance - childnature.ca
• Discover the Forest: Where the Other You Lives, PSA campaign by the Ad Council and the USDA Forest Service
• The Green Hour - greenhour.org
• The Grass Stain Guru - grassstainguru.com
• KaBoom! - kaboom.org. Another great resource, they publish research, videos, and podcasts about all sorts of aspects of outdoor play.
• Kidsgardening.org
• Learning Landscapes - learninglandscapes.org. "Creating Better Community Through Play. Learning Landscapes is a forward-thinking program at the University of Colorado Denver that connects the design and construction of urban public spaces with healthy initiatives."
• The National Institute for Play - nifplay.org
• Outdoor Afro - outdoorafro.com. "Where black people and nature meet."
  Click HERE to read an excellent interview with Outdoor Afro founder Rue Mapp by Bethe Almeras, the Grass Stain Guru.
  
• Robin Moore’s Natural Learning Initiative - naturalearning.org
• Playground Builders - playgroundbuilders.org. "Dedicated to building hope from the ground-up in war-torn areas such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories."
• Playscapes: A Blog About Playground Design - playgrounddesigns.blogspot.com by Paige Johnson
• SOL Environments (Sequential Outdoor Learning Environments) - solenvironment.org. "Our mission is to provide beautiful, innovative, FUN places in which children with autism and special needs can play, learn and grow with the support of their families and caregivers, producing joyful smiles as they connect with nature, each other and the larger world."
• What’s Out There - environmentaladventure.blogspot.com
• Sharon Lovejoy's list of Children's Gardens in the United States. Lovejoy is the author of three books on children's gardens.

Here's a nice video called "Nature Deficit Disorder: Getting Kids Outdoors" from a 2008 piece by WJZ13 news. Good interviews with Robin Moore, Marti Erickson, and Cheryl Charles (of the Children & Nature Network).

Here are a few good references. We recommend visiting the Children & Nature Network for more.

• "Research Shows a Walk in the Park Improves Attention in Children with ADHD," by Frances E. Kuo and Andrea Faber Taylor, 2008. Click HERE to read the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign press release.
• "Coping with ADD: The Surprising Connection to Green Play Settings," by Andrea Faber Taylor, Frances E. Kuo and William C. Sullivan (2001). Environment and Behavior, Vol. 33, Issue 1, pp. 54-77.
  Click HERE to read a summary of this article by InformeDesign.
• "Children with Attention Deficits Concentrate Better After Walk in the Park," by Andrea Faber Taylor and Frances E. Kuo (2008). Journal of Attention Disorders, Vol. 0, August, pp. 1-8.
  Click HERE to read a summary of this article by InformeDesign ("Nature Improves Concentration for Children with ADHD.")
  
• "Children in the City: Reclaiming the Street," by Lia Karsten and Willem van Vliet (2006). Children, Youth and Environments, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 151-167.
  Click HERE to read a summary of this article by InformeDesign ("Outdoor Spaces with Greenery, Low Traffic Levels and Places for Play are Important for Children in the City.")
• "Childhood Experiences Associated with Care for the Natural World: A Theoretical Framework for Empirical Results," by Louise Chawla (2007). Children, Youth and Environments, Vol. 17, Issue 4, pp. 144-170.
  Click HERE to read a summary of this article by InformeDesign ("Childhood Memories and Environmental Stewardship.")
  
• "Neighborhood Greenness and 2-Year Changes in Body Mass Index of Children and Youth," by Jeffrey Wilson and Gilbert Liu (2008). American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol. 35 No. 6.
  Summary by Research Design Connections: "The amount of green space near their homes is related to the weights of inner city children. Children living in inner city neighborhoods with more green space (as determined from analysis of satellite photographs) have significantly lower body mass index changes as they grow taller than children living in areas with smaller amounts of green space."
• "Seeking Restorative Experiences: Elementary School Teachers' Choices for Places that Enable Coping with Stress," by Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi (2006). Environment and Behavior, Vol.38, Issue 4, pp. 503-520.
  Click HERE to read a summary of this article by InformeDesign.
• “Neighborhood Greenness and 2-Year Changes in Body Mass Index of Children and Youth," by Janice Bell, Jeffrey Wilson, and Gilbert Liu (2008). American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol. 35, No. 6. Summary from Research Design Connections: "The amount of green space near their homes is related to the weights of inner city children. Children living in inner city neighborhoods with more green space (as determined from analysis of satellite photographs) have significantly lower body mass index changes as they grow taller than children living in areas with smaller amounts of green space."
• "Perspectives from the Ground: Early Childhood Educators' Perceptions of Outdoor Play Spaces at Child Care Centers," by Susan Harrington (2008). Children, Youth and Environments, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 64-87.
  Click HERE to read our blog post about this article.
  

And a few must-have books:

A Child's Garden: 60 Ideas to Make Any Garden Come Alive for Children by Molly Dannenmaier

Plants for Play by Robin C. Moore

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughan

Here is a comment we received from our blog post on the Huntington Children's Garden:

Namaste - good grief, we could use this in the UK....

I have a young son with autism, he loves to be outside, but he is strong and can be very violent, so there are no toys I can afford to purchase for him that he cannot destroy. And even though he loves gardens and gardening, lights and sensory waterfalls and all sorts of things, I couldn't possibly afford to buy these things for him. Even the disability grants we have in this country see gardening and landscaping as "luxuries" and yet a therapeutic garden would be perfect for him....

I live in hope that someday it would be recognised that a beautiful interactive outdoor space is just as necessary for an autistic child's wellbeing as the latest technology indoors. If you ever want to take on such a labour of love, by all means look me up...I'm willing to try anything these days and if it means finding financial backing, then I'll find it.

R. Skye

Image courtesy of Guy Ambrosino

"Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold."
- Joseph Chilton Pierce

Thank you for putting me in touch with Naomi, which led me to revise my plans for my autism school and we are now looking to incorporate a Healing Garden in the Horticutural program.