Architectural representations of an improved outdoor play space in one of the nursery sites.
The associate professor of the UBC, Dra. Mariana Brussoni, has received an additional $ 1.3 million for her ongoing project to maximize outdoor play time for learning and child care centers to support pandemic preparedness and management activities.
Dr. Mariana Brussoni
Outdoor time has always been a priority for Deborah Bakker and her family, and even more so during the pandemic. At the start of COVID-19, when her two girls were home full-time while she and her husband were juggling work, her afternoon routine quickly moved outside. Every day there was a two-hour walk through the forest of the neighborhood, with occasional detours to the nearby park. Now, Gwen and Katie are back in kindergarten and school, but the family is still out as much as possible.
“When we spend more time outdoors moving our bodies, looking at the trees and the sky, the girls sleep better and are less in a bad mood,” Deborah explains. “It really helps with your ‘great feelings.’ We all benefit from being in nature.”
So Deborah got excited when she learned that her young daughter’s daycare would be part of a research project looking for ways to increase outdoor play in learning and daycare centers.
The COVID-19 highlights the importance of outdoor play
The research project is led by Dr. Mariana Brussoni, an associate professor in the UBC Department of Pediatrics and the School of Public and Population Health, and director of the UBC Human Early Learning Partnership. It’s called PRO-ECO, “Promoting Early Childhood Abroad,” and the team has received a $ 1.3 million grant from the government’s Innovation Program for Learning and Child Care federal government to begin the second phase of the study. The first phase, which began last year with a test at eight YMCA daycares around Greater Vancouver, is underway. It had the support of the Lawson Foundation.
“We know from many other studies that playing outdoors is better. What we are doing with PRO-ECO is to focus on how we can change the behaviors and practices of early childhood educators and families, to support more outdoor games in their centers, especially in the context of the pandemic, ”says Dr. Brussoni, who is also a researcher at BC Children’s Hospital. “Expanding the study will give us very important information so that, in the end, we can come up with recommendations or guidelines that other child care centers can follow.”
“When we spend more time outside moving our bodies, looking at the trees and the sky, the girls sleep better and are less in a bad mood. It really helps with your “big feelings.” We all benefit from being in nature. ” Deborah Bakker
The team of Dr. Brussoni has been working alongside the Greater Vancouver YMCA on all aspects of this project, from the initial design. They are examining several different components: from the attitudes and beliefs of educators and administrators, to the outdoor play policies of each site, to the provincial policies governing child care facilities.
“The education and training of the staff included in the project has brought renewed enthusiasm and enthusiasm for play and outdoor exploration to our early childhood educators,” comments Sarah Gallop , YMCA’s Early Childhood Development Manager. “It has empowered our staff to spend longer periods outdoors, be more creative when planning outdoor activities for children, and have more confidence in communicating risky stories and children’s outdoor play in their families ”.
Get creative with the “renovations” of the play space
The final component of the project is the physical space itself. This is where Susan Herrington, a professor of Landscape Architecture and the School of Architecture, enters. She and a team of her students have been doing the “dirty” work of redoing outdoor play spaces. The budget is adjusted: $ 6,000 per place, with part of that provided by BC Cancer to incorporate solar safety into the interventions.
“Increasingly in Vancouver, child care centers are part of mixed-use complexes that also house condominiums and commercial facilities. Because these complexes are usually made of concrete and glass, we see a lot of hard surfaces and inert to the outdoor play spaces of these centers. This has made nature and the loose natural parts in these places more difficult, “observes Herrington.
An outdoor play space in one of the YMCA Child Care Centers that was transformed through the PRO-ECO project.
After spending some time in each place and analyzing how the children play in the existing areas, the students present specific ideas for each center. They have worked with Métis herbalist Lori Snyder to learn more about incorporating native plants into play spaces, and teamed up with wood artist Eric Scragg to recycle a giant tree stump into a natural wood climber for a place.
The team had to be creative, reusing affordable materials to increase game opportunities. Herrington shares an example: “The students used the tape that marks the hiking trails as hanging streamers swaying in the breeze. It looks really nice and the kids jump and get up to try to catch it.”
In another example, one of the kindergartens is located under the Burrard Street bridge and the goal was to block some of the “questionable activity” that was taking place outside. Herrington says, “We reused the banners (usually seen on construction fences) announcing development projects. Working with a local company, the students created nature scenes on the banners they installed on the fence of the building. center ”.
Young critics give enthusiastic reviews
Feedback has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, especially in the eight centers that have now completed their interventions in outer space. A boy made a bouquet of leaves to give to one of the landscape architecture students. Another child made a painting as a gift of gratitude. At one center, the children were so excited about the new plants called “rabbit tails,” that they created their own songs.
Leonilyn Lumbo, a veteran child educator of Bob and Kay Ackles YMCA Nanook House Child Care, is an enthusiastic supporter.
“The first time we explored the updated space, it didn’t take long to see how excited the kids were to experiment and learn, especially when it came to climbing, balancing, and many other valuable skills,” says Lumbo.
“The importance of outdoor play has never been more evident than during the last two years during the pandemic.” Mariana Brussoni
There are many other benefits to increasing outdoor play, according to Dr. Brussoni. Her other studies have shown that children’s well-being, depressive symptoms, prosocial and antisocial behaviors, and anxiety were significantly positively affected by spending more time outside.
“If you think about your favorite childhood game memory, you’re likely to be outdoors,” says Dr. Brussoni. “If you go deeper into that, people talk about a sense of joy, a sense of freedom, moving the body, screaming, immersing yourself in nature, playing with other children outside. The importance of outdoor play has never been so evident in the last two years during the pandemic. “
Deborah Bakker is looking forward to seeing her daughter Gwen’s transformation into daycare. He has seen first-hand the benefits of maximizing outdoor time, but notes that it goes much further. “Dr. EO Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis really speaks to me, which basically says we won’t save what we don’t love. If you don’t have a visceral connection to the trees and how they calm you down, you won’t mind them cutting down the tree, ”Deborah explains. week “.
This story originally appeared on the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute website.