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 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...
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...
The Parks Accessibility Conference runs virtually from August 23-25, 2022 and is free to attend! Led by Engineering Health at the KITE (Knowledge Innovation Talent Everywhere) Research Institute, the conference will bring together those with a desire to improve accessibility at national parks in Canada. Conference themes surround three main questions: What does National Park accessibility...
May 24th, 2022 1-2:15pm ET The 17th UNICEF Report Card on Child and Youth Well-being will be launched with a focus this year on children's environment. For the past two decades the UNICEF Report Cards have examined the state of children and youth's wellbeing across high-income countries providing comparisons and rankings for each country based...
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...
Thank you to Kate Smith, Communications Coordinator, Hannah Mawhinney, Research Assistant, and Mike Arthur, Municipal Policy Project Consultant at the UpLift Partnership, for providing this post. The UpLift Partnership is a School-Community-University partnership supporting the health and learning of school-aged children and youth using a youth-engaged Health Promoting Schools (HPS) approach. The UpLift team is hosted...
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...
The Government of Canada recently announced their decision to invest $55 million in the Trans Canada Trail (TCT) over the next 5 years. As outlined by the TCT team, this funding will support a number of ambitious initiatives that aim to: 'continue to improve the Trail’s accessibility, enhance opportunities to invest in the next generation of...
Opportunity to name the new building in the forest Andrew Fleck Children's Services (AFCS), in partnership with Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group and Child and Nature Alliance of Canada, are building a licensed child care program in the forest, and it’s time to decide what to call this new, wonderful location! They are seeking...
