The Natural Environment as a Playground for Children

Author: Ingunn Fjortoft
Organization: Telemark College

Laererskolevn. 40
Notodden, MD 20816
Norway

Phone: ++47 35026333
ingunn.fjortoft@hit.no

There is growing concern about children spending too much time sitting indoors instead of playing outdoors. Recently focus has been on how the natural environment affords possibilities and challenges for children to explore their own abilities for exercise and mastering. Studies have shown how children's play in the natural environment stimulates their motor fitness. Other learning effects on linguistic and conceptual context, spatial perception, and biological knowledge have also been noticed.

An experimental study was carried out with five-year-old and six-year-old pre-primary school children. The experimental group (N=46) was given motor training through playing in the natural environment. The physical landscape, vegetation, and topography were the arena for activities and free play. The natural playground was mapped and analyzed by the GIS. The experimental group visited the arena one to two hours every day when they attended kindergarten. The reference group (N=29) was similar to the experimental group in age and living conditions. The reference group participated in normal kindergarten activities, but visited the natural environment only occasionally. The study lasted for nine months. Both groups were tested before and after the implementation of the study. As testing methods the Eurofit Motor Fitness Test was applied.

Results: Preliminary results show a better improvement in motor fitness in the experimental group compared to the reference group. Significant differences (p<.01) were found in coordination, balance skills, and agility. Age-related and maturation-related competencies such as body strength and flexibility improved in all groups but did not show similar significant differences between the groups. It was also noticed that the amount of free play in the experimental group increased. There was also a considerable increase in the children's interest in and knowledge of nature.

Conclusion: By playing and activities in the natural environment the children's motor fitness is improved. Nature affords possibilities and challenges for the children to explore their own abilities. The children feel more comfortable by being in the natural environment and their knowledge about nature increases. The study indicates that the natural environment is a stimulating arena for mastering and learning processes in pre-primary school children.

Use of GIS is rapidly increasing in various disciplines. In this part of the presentation we'll show how geographic data and related attributes (descriptive data in text and figures) can be organized in a GIS database, how children's activity can be mapped and documented by use of videos and digital images, how these databases can be used for interactive visualization of the landscape and related activities, and how GIS can be used for landscape and suitability analysis (where do the children play, what type of landscapes are suitable for different types of play).

In a GIS, real-world phenomena such as viewpoints, topography, activity areas, vegetation types, tracks, buildings, and roads are represented by use of the geometric primitives points, lines, and polygons. The position is defined in coordinates in a common Cartesian reference system. Related attributes to the geographic information are organized in a relational database system and linked to the geographic information. This gives us opportunity for flexible symbolization of the geometric data and the possibility to select data based on its attribute values (e.g., find areas where the activity is skiing and shade these areas in red).

Linking videos or digital images to the geometric data can then be used for visualization of the activities and landscape.

According to defined criteria, suitability analyses can be done based on attribute values and spatial relations. Functionality as buffer (find areas in a specific distance from a phenomenon) and overlay (find correlation between two or more sets of data) are typical in GIS analysis.

Methods from landscape ecology and geomorphology are used to analyze and describe the landscape. We use ArcInfo, FRAGSTATS*ARC, and ArcView GIS for this analysis and presentation.

By using GIS as a tool to describe and analyze the natural environment as a playground (play habitat) for children, it is possible to visualize and document how the landscape, the topography, the vegetation, and its physiognomy have an impact on children's learning through the natural environment. Explicitly this project focuses on how the natural environment is a challenge to children's ability for mastering and how it directly has an impact on their motor development.