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 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 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 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...
The Child Nature Alliance of Canada (CNAC) Forest and Nature School Practitioners Course is a year-long certificate course that consists of both in-person outdoor, experiential learning, as well as online self-directed learning. CNAC has been offering this course since 2012, adapting and improving it each year based on participant feedback and the ever-evolving Forest/Nature School...
Thank you for Dr. Hilary Caldwell, Dr. Sara Kirk, Mike Arthus and Dr. Camille Hancock Friesen from the Healthy Populations Institute, Dalhousie University, for providing this post. This blog post was originally published in SaltWire. Nova Scotia is Canada’s Ocean Playground. Our ocean playground is one of the many reasons Nova Scotians, and Canadians, love this coastal...
Thank you to Laura Molyneux, Cloudberry Forest School, Newfoundland and Labrador, for providing this post. A colleague and I are writing a book together. We’re calling it “Things You Didn’t Think You’d Do As An ECE”. Today’s entry was about what to do when you find a dead blue jay. Last week we wrote a risk...
Thank you to Sylvie Melsbach, partnerships and outdoor play lead at the Regroupement des centres de la petite enfance de la Monteregie, for providing this post. The "Poupons et trottineurs ouverts vers le monde extérieur : Creating Optimal Outdoor Spaces for Infants and Toddlers in Early Learning and Child Care" project is based on the premise that...
Outdoor Play Canada is proud to be among over 40 organizational signatories of the Healthy Environments for Learning Day Vision Statement for Healthy and Sustainable Child Care Environments, led by the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment and the Canadian Child Care Federation. This vision statement outlines ten core elements of healthy and sustainable...
