Thank you to Megan Zeni, PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia, for providing this post. The Play Outside Lab at the University of British Columbia is now recruiting elementary school teachers who are willing to share photos, videos and learning materials that demonstrate outdoor play and learning in elementary (K-8) schools. If you know...
Thank you to Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos and the Canadian Disability Participation Project team for contributing this guest post. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Canadian Disability Participation Project (with expertise in childhood disability, physical activity, health behaviour change, surveillance and inclusive physical education programming), representatives from disability and physical activity organizations, and parents of children and...
Thank you to Dr Michaela James – Swansea University, UK, for providing this post. Play is a vital part of growing up; it is so important that it has been made a right by the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) under Article 31 [1]. Therefore, by its definition, young people have...
BREAKING NEWS. Outdoor Play Canada, the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the CHEO Research Institute, Andrew Fleck Children's Services and Algonquin College have recently been awarded $2M for a 5-year project to launch the Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play, a centre of excellence where practice, policy and research will come together to...
Thank you to Gerben Helleman, author of the blog Urban Springtime and Researcher Public Space and Child-friendly Cities at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, for providing this post. Fortunately, more and more municipalities are working on play-friendly public spaces. However, many policy visions and investments are still based on assumptions made by municipal officials or...
Thank you to ParticipACTION for providing this post. The 2022 ParticipACTION Children and Youth Report Card has arrived! The 15th edition of the Report Card contains grades based on data collected during the pandemic to better assess its impact on kids’ movement behaviours. The pandemic drove a sudden and drastic shift in how kids could access physical...
Save the date! The 2023 Breath of Fresh Air Summit will be held from September 27-29th, 2023 in Wesley Clover Parks, Ottawa, ON! Just one year away! Led by Outdoor Play Canada, Breath of Fresh Air is a two-day Outdoor Play Summit where thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, and policy makers can connect and share best practices. The...
Thank you to Dr. Shawnda Morrison, Assistant Professor and Scientist, Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, for providing this post. Record levels of obesity and physical inactivity among children mean they are set to bear the brunt of poorer health effects from rising global temperatures – that’s the stark warning in a new comprehensive...
Thank you to Dr. Avril Johnstone, Dr. Anne Martin, and Dr. Paul McCrorie, from the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Scotland, for providing this post. What is nature-based early childhood education and why is it important? "I like being outside with my friends, I like all the colours outside and all the space....
Thank you to Rachel Ramsden, PhD student at the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, for providing this post. Summer weather encourages many of us outdoors and, as we saw during the COVID pandemic, being outside brings us many benefits – to our health and wellbeing. The research in our lab focuses...
