Risky play is defined as thrilling and challenging forms of play that have the potential for physical injury and has been linked to development and health benefits for children in the early years. ...These benefits include risk-assessment skills, increased physical activity and well-being, and promoting social competencies and resilience. Currently, in a Western context, children's opportunities for risky play are decreasing and at the same time, childhood inactivity and coinciding health concerns are on the rise. Risky play may help ameliorate some current health problems for children. This research aimed to increase understanding of how children use affordances (environmental factors that intersect with and influence human behaviours) for risky play. Physical environmental factors have been found to influence children's affordances for all play, including risky play. The study employed a deductive analysis of participant-observer field notes and focused-video observations in order to identify how children utilize indoor and outdoor environmental features for risky play. Data was interpreted through Gibson's theory of affordances and was then fit to established taxonomies of environments for children's risky play. Research was conducted with children, ages 3-4 years, at a kindergarten in Norway. Findings identified environmental affordances for risky play that were actualized by children in this study. We propose that findings from this study may be useful in considering the physical design of early childhood education play spaces.
Public playgrounds afford children and families important opportunities for outdoor play, social participation, and inclusion. Unfortunately, many children and families experience barriers to ...accessing, using, and being included in public playgrounds. Consequently, Universal Design (UD) is promoted for providing conceptual guidance for designing for inclusion in public playgrounds. However, a lack of research evidence means researchers have engaged in the ongoing interpretation of the UD concept and related non-discriminatory planning and design concepts. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine how UD, and related concepts, are used in peer-reviewed articles concerning public playgrounds.
A scoping review was conducted in November 2019, which identified 15 peer-reviewed articles that met the inclusion criteria.
Analysis revealed that the terms UD, inclusive design, accessibility, and usability are all being used to describe non-discriminatory planning and design concepts arbitrarily and without regard for higher or lower order concepts. Two broad interpretations were evident: (a) UD is synonymous with accessibility for some, and (b) UD is a higher-order concept that goes beyond accessibility for others. Nevertheless, findings highlight the utility of UD in underpinning the design of public playgrounds in many developed countries; however, the concept requires further clarity and specificity as it pertains to playground design and more pertinently inclusion in outdoor play.
We argue for further conceptual refinement to consolidate the importance and future application of UD for Play (UDP) in the design of public playgrounds that promote outdoor play, social participation, and inclusion.
IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION
Most peer-reviewed journal articles reviewed fail to define what is meant by the term Universal Design.
Of those that do provide a definition, the outcome of inclusion in play, or the application of Universal Design to enable play in public playgrounds was unclear.
Research to date has mostly focused on related concepts, including accessibility and usability, with less emphasis on Universal Design.
Recommend a tailored perspective of Universal Design for Play (UDP).
Social connectedness at school is crucial to children's development, yet very little is known about the way it has been affected by school closures during COVID-19 pandemic. We compared pre-post ...lockdown levels of social connectedness at a school playground in forty-three primary school-aged children, using wearable sensors, observations, peer nominations and self-reports. Upon school reopening, findings from sensors and peer nominations indicated increases in children's interaction time, network diversity and network centrality. Group observations indicated a decrease in no-play social interactions and an increase in children's involvement in social play. Explorative analyses did not reveal relations between changes in peer connectedness and pre-lockdown levels of peer connectedness or social contact during the lockdown period. Findings pointed at the role of recess in contributing to children's social well-being and the importance of attending to their social needs upon reopening.
•This case-study is the first to compare social connectedness at the schoolyard from before to after COVID-19 lockdown•Sensors, observations and nominations indicated increases in interaction time, social play, network diversity and closeness.•Changes in peer connectedness were not related to pre/during-lockdown connectivity, yet this issue merits further research.•School scheduling should take into account children's social needs upon reopening.
Playing outdoors in nature with peers has been attributed most importance for children's healthy development but is increasingly marginalized because of the attractiveness of screen-based play. ...Careful merging of digital technology into outdoor play environments rich on nature elements could potentially help bridge digital play with more traditional play activities outdoors. A systematic comparison was made of outdoor play in more or less green settings, with and without digital installations or traditional play equipment. The separate and combined role of digital artefacts, play equipment and natural elements, were investigated, with particular focus on the effects of merging digital materials into nature. A group of children aged 6–8 were involved in a field study in a three-week period playing in a traditional playground, a forest and in a forest with digitally enhanced play artefacts. Children´s play behavior was evaluated using a behavioral tracking method, a questionnaire and a contextual interview with the children, and a physical activity measure, in combination with inventories including maps to document the design, and the ecological and physical status of the settings. The study documents differences in children's play behavior across the three settings. It differs most between the digital forest setting and the forest setting regarding the play categories imaginative play, physical play and rule play and the digital forest setting stands out when it comes to expressive play. It is discussed how particular attributes in the physical environment influence the overall play flow and the interactive effects of natural material and digital material. Ecologically, the forest and the forest with digitally enhanced artefacts were more diverse than the traditional playground, but the natural material present was important for play in all settings.
Model Desert, Sandbox Monument Zinguer, Tamar
Journal of architectural education (1984),
07/2023, Letnik:
77, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
When Robert Smithson visited Passaic, New Jersey, the town where he was born, he recognized in the deserted sandbox a 'model desert' and a 'sandbox monument.' Following Smithson's lead, this ...narrative will thread spatial instances that explore how a box full of sand, where children usually play, could encapsulate the potency of some vast barren lands eliciting war and destruction, burial, and death. In the hands of some players, the sandbox also becomes a monument to unattainable lands, a monument to the passage of time-a playground to a future yet to come.
Globally, Universal Design (UD) is promoted as an evidence-informed approach for planning and designing accessible and inclusive public playgrounds, which are valuable sites for outdoor play in ...child-friendly cities. However, it remains unclear the extent to which UD has been implemented in public playgrounds. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which UD is implemented, from the perspectives of playground professionals in the Republic of Ireland. A descriptive, cross-sectional online survey was used to gather data. Data analysis revealed that playground professionals recognise the importance of UD for planning, designing, and providing public playgrounds for inclusion, and implement UD in various ways. Still, a lack of knowledge and good practice guides for embedding UD, constitute significant barriers. Numerous opportunities, initiatives and training prospects were identified to better support the implementation of UD. Moreover, further research with 'professional experts' and 'user-experts' is required to strengthen socio-spatial inclusion.
Open spaces for collective use in the built heritage of cities are the places to promote and sustain social, cultural, and economic changes. The transformation of the built environment raises ...awareness of following the policies and tools for the implementation of the EU New Generation Programme, redefining the framework of intervention priorities at the urban scale. Tackling the increasing physical degradation, underutilization, social disparity, and loss of the tangible and intangible culture of these types of spaces, this research identifies artistic production and social cohesion as the enabling factors of maintenance. The regeneration of areas of collective use returns an experimentation of strategic importance for the participatory and shared care of consolidated heritage contexts. The Sanità district in Naples represents a case study of a community-built custom playground, testing a co-design approach, maintaining the consolidated qualities, and awakening the responsibility of the youngest. The outcome is a circular model that focuses on the regeneration of such spaces, transforming an abandoned built environment from waste into a resource.
Schools and communities typically design and build playgrounds with little knowledge that the selected playground equipment meets the needs of children, caregivers, and teachers. In this article, the ...various categories of playgrounds are discussed and analyzed. The focus of this discussion includes an overview of the legal requirements and guidelines for school and community playgrounds, a description of prior research highlighting the inadequacies in currently available playgrounds, and an explanation of the trends in playground design over the years. We relate these topics to the need for universally designed playgrounds and a deeper commitment to designing playgrounds and play equipment that is empirically tested and meets the needs of all children, their teachers, and their families. By discussing practical examples and research findings to illustrate the gap between playground manufacturers and their play equipment and playground consumers, this paper serves as a meaningful resource for teachers and other stakeholders so they have the knowledge to advocate for their students with disabilities in playground endeavors. Taking recent research findings into account, we provide a vision for playground policy change.
Setting
Planning and designing thermally comfortable outdoor spaces is increasingly important in the context of climate change, particularly as children are more vulnerable than adults to ...environmental extremes. However, existing playground standards focus on equipment and surfacing to reduce acute injuries, with no mention of potential negative health consequences related to heat illness, sun exposure, and other thermal extremes. The goal of this project was to develop proposed guidelines for designing thermally comfortable playgrounds in Canada for inclusion within the CAN/CSA-Z614 Children’s playground equipment and surfacing standard.
Intervention
The project to develop guidance for thermally comfortable playgrounds was initiated with a municipal project in Windsor, Ontario, to increase shade, vegetation, and water features at parks and playgrounds to provide more comfortable experiences amid the increased frequency of hot days (≥30°C). The lack of available information to best manage environmental conditions led to a collaborative effort to build resources and raise awareness of best practices in the design of thermally comfortable playgrounds.
Outcomes
A group of multidisciplinary experts developed technical guidance for improving thermal comfort at playgrounds, including a six-page thermal comfort annex adopted within a national playground and equipment standard. The annex has been used by Canadian schools in a competition to design and implement green playgrounds.
Implications
Both the technical report and the thermal comfort annex provide increased awareness and needed guidance for managing environmental conditions at playgrounds. Thermally safe and comfortable play spaces will help ensure that Canada’s playgrounds are designed to minimize environmental health risks for children.
The Taiwan food incident in 2011 regarding the illegal use of phthalate esters (PAEs) as clouding agents raised the public awareness and regulatory acts on certain PAEs. According to the review of ...the relevant literature, this is the first study to assess the exposures of children to PAE in dust and soil in their everyday environments (homes, elementary schools, kindergartens, outdoor playgrounds, and running tracks) and to evaluate the temporal trends of PAEs in home dust in Taiwan after the aforementioned incident. The total dust PAE levels in schools (median: 1562 μg/g dust, range: 9–16,233 μg/g dust) and kindergartens (median: 1124 μg/g dust, range: 91–15,180 μg/g dust) were significantly higher (p < 0.001) than those in homes (median: 497 μg/g dust, range: 13–12,451 μg/g dust). Children's exposure in schools of the age groups of 6–11 years and in kindergartens of for the age group of 3–5 years accounted for 44% and 42% of the total PAE exposures, respectively. The estimated daily dust PAE exposures (ingestion and dermal) for children were lower than the tolerable levels recommended by the European Food Safety Authority for reproductive and liver effects. The levels of DEHP, DBP, BBP, DEP, and DMP in home dust exhibited a declining trend during 2006–2014 in Southern Taiwan. The DINP/DEHP ratios in home, school, and kindergarten dusts revealed the accelerated replacement of DEHP, which may be the result of the awareness and regulatory concerns arising from the 2011 PAE incident. Recycled rubbers used in playgrounds and athletic fields are potential PAE sources that must be considered.
Display omitted
•This study assesses children's exposure to PAEs under different environments of their daily lives.•The study evaluates the temporal trends of PAEs in home dusts in Taiwan.•Phthalates in schools and kindergartens are significantly higher than those in homes.•PAE indoors are not expected to be dominated by DEHP in the near future in Taiwan.
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