Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

This project is the first step in advancing skills and services from traditional playground design to creatingarchitectural designs, construction and testing of new designs that reflect the principles of natural playgroundsincluding appropriate ""loose parts"" (specialized equipment) and experiential play zones that ultimately increasechildren's ability to achieve developmental milestones and healthy living practices. The need to change fromtraditional playground designs stems from the academic research completed (both nationally andinternationally) that clearly outlines the social, physical, emotional, educational and health benefits thatchildren acquire from an early exposure to outdoor play environments and accompanying programming that arebased on natural play space perspectives. The new knowledge and application of theory to practice from thisproject will contribute to developing commercial services and products necessary to respond to creatingspecialized natural play spaces while adhering to CSA standards and naturalization principles.The project's objective is to transfer the academic research based on the work of Dietze and Kim (2014) on theelements of what constitutes quality natural play spaces to Outland Design Landscape Architects in order forthis company to develop specific expertise in architectural designs and construction that will allow them toexpand their design services and accompanying new products in the area of natural outdoor playgrounddesign/equipment. The first phase of the project will result in Outland examining the theoretical constructs ofnatural play space requirements and then creating the design work for both the landscape structures and in newprototypes of specific ""loose parts"" from natural types of materials. This phase is required for Outland toacquire the characteristics that model optimum play and learning opportunities in natural outdoor playgrounds.The design work and prototypes will be field tested with experts in early childhood education in relation toidentified characteristics of quality outdoor play spaces.