April 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 14

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

Nature Play continued from page 11

anticipated was the frenzied opposition
that ensued from the neighborhood children who had come to love their nature
sanctuary. The kids posted signs daily in
the nature play area. " Park Rangers, turn
your chainsaws around! " " You can't police every hazard in the woods! " " Stop
taking away our fun! " What a wonderful
moment to realize that these nature play
test sites are working. These kids wanted
their woods and they were willing to protect, advocate for, and fight for them!
Just six years earlier, the concept of
nature play was taking shape around

12	

Parks & Recreation   A P R I L

the country in response to the alarming research on the epidemic of nature
deficit disorder in children. Five Rivers
MetroParks in Dayton, Ohio, was at the
forefront of implementation. With the full
support of MetroParks' leadership, a conscious organizational decision was made
to develop five nature play sites in various parks in the district with a range of
characteristics intended to give kids the
opportunity to establish a personal connection to nature and give staff the ability
to monitor the sites to see what worked.
Five Rivers MetroParks defined nature play as an unstructured outdoor experience in a natural environment, with
minimal guidance of an adult, which
cumulatively strengthens an individual's personal connection to nature. MetroParks began promoting nature play
for children and families at the five park
locations. Efforts were both program and
facility based and were grounded within
the agency's strategic goal of connecting
children to nature in direct support of our
mission as a conservation-based agency.

2 0 1 2    w w w . N R P A . O R G

The predominance of media in our
lives and a shift to highly supervised
and structured childhood play and recreation has resulted in families with limited comfort or experience with nature
and natural settings. MetroParks's nature play sites and supporting programs
were designed to reintroduce children
and families to natural settings through
exploration and development of outdoor
skills. The goal of MetroParks nature play
sites was to " graduate " participants to independent play and park use by reducing some of the prevalent psychological
barriers (bugs, weather, don't get muddy, etc.) and building confidence in being outdoors in an unstructured setting.
Access to natural areas for play is a



April 2012 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2012 - Parks & Recreation

April 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 1
April 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 2
April 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 3
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