A comparison between the traditional American playground with the adventure playground clearly shows the superiority of the latter in meeting the play needs of children. This study explores the history and characteristics of both types of playgrounds. Research also focuses on children's play needs and how playground design affects these needs. Adventure playgrounds as public school playgrounds offer a wider range of play experiences than can the traditional school playground and can enhance academic learning. Inservice training for educators can facilitate an understanding of the concept of the adventure playground and the teacher's role as play leader. Enlisting community support and involvement may lead to the use of the playground after school hours and during the summer which would result in maximum benefit for the children.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional & Community Planning / Hyung Jin Kim / Nature-based play is gaining attention in early childhood education because of the social, physical, and cognitive benefits from interacting with nature at a young age (International Play Association 2014). Some studies provide strong evidence to suggest that nature-based unstructured play can have a positive benefit on early childhood development and improve the socialization, problem solving, confidence, creativity, autonomy, and self-awareness in children as well as their physical health (Fjortoft 2004, Louv 2005). The purpose of this study is to identify differences in play behavior among preschoolers that may influence early childhood development between standard or traditional playgrounds and playgrounds designed with interaction with nature, or access to nature, and, thus, to suggest design solutions for play environment, which responds to the issues this research identifies. This is a comparative observational study on play behavior between two study settings, including nature-based and standard/traditional-play environments with nature-access . Comparative observations were conducted at the Center for Child Development (nature-based) and Hoeflin Stone House Early Childhood Center (standard) at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Preschoolers’ play behaviors and behavior-environment interactions in both settings were compared using behavioral mapping and time-lapse observation (20 minutes per subject) techniques in which their location, activities, and interactions were recorded. Findings suggest that children in nature-based playgrounds are more likely to be physically active and creative with their play. Also, movable and manipulative play elements (“loose parts”) allow children to engage in more social activities than standard anchored playground element vs. standard playgrounds, however, allow children to explore games with rules and provide valuable development for motor and social skills. Therefore, this study suggests a design approach that is a hybrid between designed nature and standard play in a way that utilizes the positive aspects of both types of play. These findings will lead to a call for research and design into the direction of creating outdoor play environments that infuse standard play structures with natural environments.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Huston Gibson / Play is essential to the development of children, as it serves as the main platform for a child to begin to explore his or her world and understand their physical and social environment. It is not a frivolous activity, but a method of learning. Despite this recognition, many playground designs are still steered, wrongly so, by unwarranted societal fears of safety. Such playgrounds lack developmental benefits due to their composition of isolated, prefab plastic components on an asphalt field. Despite recognition in the late twentieth century that “childhood itself is in danger of extinction”, many playground are still sterile in nature. The time is now for designers to look critically at playground design trends and intervene to improve the quality of the environments our children are exposed too. The positive development of the next generation, our children, depends on it. In the case of the community of La Chuscada in Chinandega, Nicaragua, economic status presents a major barrier to the creation of beneficial learning environments. This project addresses the hardships of implementing a developmentally beneficial playground, and through the collaboration with the Amigos for Christ philanthropic organization and interior architecture student Aaron Bisch, offers solutions to achieve this goal. Culture-specific influences of play are explored and survey data from the community of La Chuscada reveal strategies for the implementation of a nature playground design that offers developmental benefits for the children of the community.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / Children are imaginative, creative, and active. Children of all age groups are influenced by their surroundings, particularly school-aged children (Frost, 2010). School-aged children’s physical, emotional, social, and intellectual developmental characteristics are influenced by their surrounding environments. Today, uniform playgrounds are diminishing the opportunities for youth to develop their personal creativity and imagination through play (Thompson 2007, Solomon 2005). By integrating art into playgrounds, these environments will offer children greater opportunity for developmental enrichment through their interactions with the site. Researched cases of art and play have inspired the development of a typology. The typology is a collection of quintessential ways that settings for play can be visually and experientially enriched by art. This process began with three critical questions; 1) What constitutes a playground? 2) What is art? and 3) How can art be integrated into playgrounds? More than 30 precedents that demonstrate art in a play setting were examined. Noting differences and similarities between the precedents, 12 types were identified. Next, analysis matrices identifying primary and, if applicable, secondary placement of each of the precedents in the 12 developed types, including sub-types, giving art in playgrounds a place. Also classified was type of art, high or vernacular, for each precedent. The research methodology was an iterative process of literature and precedent research followed by the distillation of types, further research, and refinement of the typology framework.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture / Katie Kingery-Page / Encouraging creativity is an important part of a child’s education and often not adequately supported by outdoor school environments. Contemporary playgrounds are designed in response to perceptions of liability and a limited interpretation of child development. Prefabricated plastic constructions and expanses of asphalt are poor initiators of creative expression. This project proposes a more stimulating, artistically crafted alternative to the typical playground. Beginning with documented research of play, the project layers psychology, education and humanities to form an understanding of how formal space affects human experience. More specifically, poetry, land art, sculpture, narrative and character studies inform the design solution for a 6.4 acre site at Northview Elementary School in Manhattan, Kansas. Integrated design provides children a meaningful experience of space and direct contact with nature. This design encourages imaginative and creative play, expanding the experiential quality of a contemporary playground.

The prevalence of obesity among young children has markedly increased over the past two decades, with more than one-third of American preschoolers now overweight or obese and at risk for lifelong health problems. Physical activity is a recommended obesity prevention strategy, yet preschoolers typically fail to meet recommended daily physical activity guidelines, spending just 15 minutes engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity, compared to six sedentary hours daily. Unstructured play in settings with varied features, such as childcare center playgrounds, potentially plays a significant role in increasing the amount of time preschoolers spend in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The purposes of this study were first, to compare the intensity and type of preschoolers' physical activity across four distinctly different outdoor play settings; second, to identify particular features in each play setting associated with MVPA and sedentary behavior; and, third, to identify, test, and evaluate environmental modifications to increase preschoolers' MVPA in outdoor play settings. Seventeen 3-5 year-old children participated in repeated unstructured play sessions featuring 16 min of play in each of 4 novel settings: a traditional climber, a wooded natural area, a garden, and an adventure, or "loose parts" playground. Interventions to increase physical activity were introduced to the adventure playground during the first two phases, and to all four settings during the third phase. Physical activity intensity was measured using ActiGraph GT3x+ activity monitors and contextual information concerning motor skills was obtained by trained observers using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC), adapted to the age and environment of the study. Results show that both play setting design theme and the composition of specific play features within the setting impact the type of motor skills children perform and the amount of MVPA young children accumulate during unstructured play. Findings additionally demonstrate that simple, low-cost modifications to play settings can increase MVPA for targeted subgroups and individual children; outcomes were setting-specific. Study results may be useful to public health and medical workers, parents, educators, playground designers, community planners, and policy makers who focus on increasing preschool children's daily MVPA and decreasing childhood obesity. / Kinesiology

Introduction: Injuries due to accidents are an underlying cause for a large proportion of the number of health care visits in Sweden every year. According to statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden (socialstyrelsen.se) between 1308,25 and 1405,66 health care visits per 100.000 residents are generated each year for the period 2001-2014 due to accidents, and falling is the largest underlying category. Falling can in turn be studied through a number of subcategories, where fall from equipment on playground is one of them, and this is the subcategory studied in this paper. Statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare show an increase of the number of health care visits per 100.000 residents in Sweden due to this category during the period 2001-2014, despite the fact that since 1999 there are European standards with the purpose of raising the safety of playgrounds. The statistics also show that in Sweden there are large regional differences in injury prevalence for this category of accidents, which is the reason why this became the focus of this study.   One of the reasons this is an important area for injury prevention work is that it’s a shared societal responsibility, another reason is that the studied population has the largest statistical life expectancy left, so injuries that affect their health can also affect the future wellbeing of the society.  The municipalities’ work regarding this area is dictated by European Standards to ensure the safety of playgrounds. Beyond the specifications for the equipment itself, the standards dictate that a series of inspections of varying degrees are preformed throughout the year to ensure the standards are met.   Aim: The aim of this study is to examine if there are any identifiable and differing factors in the way that municipalities work with playgrounds and playground safety, both practically and theoretically, based on if they are located in a region with high injury prevalence or in a region with low injury prevalence of this type of injury.   Method: The study was designed as a qualitative interview study where representatives of 11 different municipalities were interviewed with the purpose to map out how they worked with playgrounds and playground safety within their municipality. The data collected was then analysed using thematically/ phenomenological content analysis to see if any differing factors between the two groups could be detected.   Results: No major unambiguous differences were discovered between the two compared groups included in the study, but certain tendencies could be found in the material. Four themes were uncovered, enabling factors for the practical work, hindering factors for the practical work, enabling factors for the theoretical work and hindering factors for the theoretical work. These themes in turn produce a number of categories and subcategories. The results show a wider range of both hindering and enabling factors of both the practical and theoretical work in the municipalities from regions with high injury prevalence, compared to the municipalities from regions with low injury prevalence.   Conclusion: The result indicates that there are differences in how the municipalities from regions with low injury prevalence work regarding playground safety compared to municipalities from regions with high injury prevalence. However, further research will be required to fully uncover and explore which these factors are. / Inledning: Skador till följd av olyckor ligger bakom en ansenlig andel av vårdtillfällen i Sverige varje år. Enligt Patientregistret (Socialstyrelsen.se) uppgår dessa skador till mellan 1308,25 till 1405,66 vårdtillfällen per 100 000 invånare och år, under åren 2001–2014. Den olyckstyp som är orsaken till att högst antal personen uppsöker vård är fallolyckor.  Fallolyckor delas i sin tur in i flera underkategorier, varav en är fall från lekredskap på lekplats, vilket är vad denna studie kom att fokusera på. Orsaken till att denna kategori är intressant är att det i statistiken i Patientregistret går att se en ökning av antalet vårdtillfällen per 100 000 invånare för åren 2001–2014, detta trots att det sedan 1999 finns europeiska standarder med syfte att höja säkerheten på lekplatser. I statistiken går också att utläsa att det finns stora regionala variationer i skadeprevalensen för denna olyckskategori i Sverige, vilket är huvudområdet för denna studie.   Något som gör detta till ett viktigt område för skadeprevention är dels att det är ett samhällsansvar, ansvaret för barnens hälsa och välmående kan inte läggas varken på barnen själva eller uteslutande på deras föräldrar; dels på grund av att skador i denna population kan få stora effekter på sikt då barn är den grupp som statistiskt sett har flest levnadsår kvar och i framtiden kommer bära ansvaret för det gemensamma samhället. Kommunerna idag är ålagda enligt de europeiska standarderna att se till att lekplatser följer vissa standarder för att lekplatserna ska anses säkra. Utöver de specifikationer som finns för själva utrustningen så utförs uppdraget genom att ett antal inspektioner och besiktningar görs för att säkerställa att standarden på lekplatserna löpande efterses.   Syfte: Målet med studien är således att undersöka och försöka kartlägga om det finns skillnader i arbetssätt, både praktiskt och teoretiskt, mellan kommuner som ligger i län med hög skadeprevalens inom denna olyckskategori jämfört med kommuner som ligger i län med låg dito som kan förklara skillnaderna i fallskadeprevalens mellan de båda grupperna.   Metod: Studien utfördes som en kvalitativ intervjustudie där representanter för totalt 11 kommuner intervjuades kring hur de inom den egna kommunen arbetade med lekplatser och lekplatssäkerhet. Insamlade data analyserades sedan med tematisk/ fenomenologisk innehållsanalys för att se om några skillnader kunde upptäckas.   Resultat: Inga större, konkreta skillnader kunde upptäckas mellan de två grupperna som jämfördes i studien, däremot kunde vissa tendenser skönjas. Fyra teman vaskades fram genom analysen, vilka var goda förutsättningar för det praktiska arbetet, faktorer som hindrar det praktiska arbetet, goda förutsättningar för det teoretiska arbetet samt faktorer som hindrar det teoretiska arbetet. Dessa teman är i sin tur indelade i ett antal kategorier och underkategorier. Resultatet visar att bland kommuner som ligger i län med hög skadeprevalens är en större spridning på hindrande och underlättande faktorer för såväl det praktiska som det teoretiska arbetet med lekplatssäkerhet, jämfört med kommuner från län med låg skadeprevalens.   Slutsats: Resultatet indikerar att det finns faktorer kring arbetet med lekplatssäkerhet som skiljer sig åt i hur kommuner från län med hög skadeprevalens arbetar kring lekplatssäkerhet, kontra kommuner från län med låg skadeprevalens. Dock krävs vidare forskning för att se en tydlig kartläggning av dessa faktorer.