Architectural renderings of an improved outdoor play space at one of the kindergarten sites.
UBC Associate Professor Dr. Mariana Brusoni received an additional $1.3 million for her ongoing project to increase outdoor play time for early learning and child care centers to support pandemic management and preparedness activities.
Dr. Mariana Brusoni
Spending time outdoors has always been a priority for Deborah Baker and her family, even more so during the pandemic. At the onset of COVID-19, when her two young girls were home full-time while she and her husband juggled work, their afternoon routine quickly shifted outside. Every day there was a two-hour walk through the neighborhood forest, occasionally detouring to a nearby park. Gwen and Katie are now back in daycare and school, but the family still gets outside as much as possible.
“When we spend more time outside moving our bodies, looking at the trees and the sky, the girls sleep better and are less moody,” explains Deborah. “It really helps with their ‘big feelings.’ We all benefit from being in nature.”
So Deborah was thrilled to learn that her younger daughter’s day care would be part of a research project looking at ways to increase outdoor play in early learning and child care centers.
COVID-19 shines a light on the importance of outdoor play
The research project is led by Dr. Mariana Brusoni, associate professor in UBC’s Department of Pediatrics and School of Population and Public Health and director of the UBC Human Early Learning Partnership. It’s called PRO-ECO, “Promoting Early Childhood Outdoors,” and the team received a $1.3 million grant from the federal government’s Early Learning and Child Care Innovation Program to launch the second phase of the study. The first phase, which began last year with a trial at eight YMCA kindergartens around Greater Vancouver, is ongoing. It was supported by the Lawson Foundation.
“We already know from many other studies that more outdoor play is better. What we are doing with PRO-ECO focuses on how we can change the behaviors and practices of early childhood educators and families to support more outdoor play in their centers, especially in the context of the pandemic,” says Dr. p Brusoni, who is also a researcher at the Children’s Hospital of British Columbia. “Expanding the study will give us really important information so that at the end of it we can come up with recommendations or guidelines that other childcare 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 moody. It really helps with their “big feelings”. We all benefit from being in nature.” Deborah Bakker
Dr. Brusoni’s team worked alongside the YMCA of Greater Vancouver on all aspects of this project, from the initial design. They examine several different components, from the attitudes and beliefs of educators and administrators, to the outdoor play policies at each site, to the provincial policies governing childcare facilities.
“The staff education and training built into the project brought new excitement and enthusiasm for outdoor play and exploration to our early childhood educators,” commented Sarah Gallop, YMCA manager of early childhood development. “This has enabled our staff to spend longer periods of time outdoors, become more creative in planning outdoor activities for children and become more confident in communicating children’s risk stories and their outdoor play to their families.”
Get creative with “makeovers” of the play space
The final component of the project is the physical space itself. That’s where UBC architecture and landscape architecture professor Susan Herrington steps in. She and a team of her students do the “dirty” work of remodeling outdoor play spaces. The budget is small — $6,000 per site, with a portion provided by BC Cancer to incorporate sun protection into the interventions.
“Increasingly, in Vancouver, child care centers are part of mixed-use developments that also house apartments and retail. Because these complexes are usually made of concrete and glass, we see a lot of hard, inert surfaces in the outdoor play spaces in these centers. This made it difficult for nature and natural loose parts to enter these places,” notes Herrington.
An outdoor play space in one of the YMCA’s children’s centers that was transformed through the PRO-ECO project.
After spending time at each site and analyzing how children play in existing areas, students come up with ideas specific to each center. They 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 climbing frame for a place.
The team had to be creative, repurposing available materials to increase playability. Herrington shared one example: “Students used the tape that marks hiking trails as hanging ribbons that sway in the breeze. It looks really beautiful and the kids are jumping and reaching to try and grab it.’
In another example, one of the kindergartens is located under the Burrard Street Bridge, and the goal is to block out some of the “suspicious activity” that occurs outside. Herrington says: “We repurposed banners (commonly found on construction fences) that advertise development projects. Working with a local company, the students created scenes from nature on the banners which they mounted on the centre’s fence.’
Young critics give rave reviews
The feedback has been extremely enthusiastic, especially in the eight centers that have already completed their outdoor interventions. One child made a bouquet of leaves to give to one of the landscape architecture students. Another child made a painting as a thank you gift. At one centre, children were so excited by new plants called ‘rabbit tails’ that they created their own songs.
Leonilyn Lumbo, a veteran early childhood educator at Bob and Kay Ackles YMCA Nanook House Child Care, is an enthusiastic supporter.
“The first time we all explored the renovated 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,” notes Lumbo.
“The importance of outdoor play has never been more apparent than in the past two years during the pandemic.”Dr. Mariana Brusoni
There are many other benefits of increased outdoor play, according to Dr. Brusoni. Other studies of hers show that children’s well-being, depressive symptoms, prosocial and antisocial behavior and anxiety are significantly positively affected by spending more time outside.
“If you think of your favorite childhood memory, you’re probably outdoors,” says Dr. Brusoni. “If you dig into it, people talk about feeling joy, feeling free, moving their body, shouting, being immersed in nature, playing with other kids outside. The importance of outdoor play has never been more evident than in the past two years during the pandemic.”
Deborah Backer watched with anticipation the transformation unfolding in her daughter Gwen’s kindergarten. She has seen firsthand the benefits of maximizing time outside, but points out that it goes beyond that. “Dr. EO Wilson’s Biophilia Hypothesis really speaks to me, which basically says that we won’t save what we don’t love. If you don’t have an intuitive connection with trees and how they soothe you, then you won’t care if they cut the tree down,” explains Deborah. “You can only get that by standing under a tree on a regular basis, and you can’t just do that on the weekends.”
This story originally appeared on the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute website.
Add Comment