Parental/Teacher Preferences for Children’s Outdoor Learning Environment

Charles Klein (Texas Tech University)Kristi Gaines (Texas Tech University)
Sahand Abbasi (Texas Tech University)

Background

OLE! Texas is a statewide multidisciplinary initiative intended to promote childhood physical activity in childcare Outdoor Learning Environments. The initiative seeks to reduce sedentary behavior through evidence based, purposeful design.

The Texas Tech University Department of Landscape Architecture and the Department of Design have facilitated four participatory workshops based on the model developed at the Natural Learning Initiative (NLI). The process includes a survey of teachers, administrators and parents to understand their preferences for outdoor play settings.

Methods

A survey instrument with structured questions was developed and tested to collect data from parents, teachers, and administrators. The main categories for the survey were intellectual and social skills, muscle control and motor skills, and free play.

Four childcare centers in Texas with a total of 80 individuals participated. They included 22 teachers, 17 teacher assistants, 4 administrators, 28 parents, and 9 others. The participants indicated they had or supervised children including 27 infants, 43 toddlers, 22 preschoolers, and 10 school age.

Result

The responses indicated that the most popular features for the proposed outdoor learning environment were: play equipment, earth play, water play, acoustic play, transitional space, and grass maze. These data were used to help guide the design of the childcare outdoor spaces.

Conclusion

The information gathered helped guide the design and build buy-in among the workshop participants. These and other features were included to support gross and fine motor skills, cooperative play, and the inclusion of natural systems.

The impact of the new Outdoor Learning Environments children should be acontinuous process that is evaluated after changes are implemented.

Analyzing the outcomes of the environmental design strategies may provide new insights that will potentially influence decisions in future projects that includes physical activities as well as social and emotional development.