Abstract Background The decrease in children’s outdoor activity and its associated health impacts form the basis for health promotion initiatives to encourage children's outdoor activity. As gatekeepers to their children’s participation in registered programs, parents must be convinced that the benefits of enrollment in such programs outweigh the costs. A guiding framework is thus needed to help recreation providers identify critical program components and effective messages to attract parents. Purpose The main purpose of this study was to gain insight into parental perceptions of barriers and facilitators to enrolling their children in an outdoor activity program in order to inform the development of an action planning framework for recreation providers. A secondary purpose was to apply the framework to an existing summer activity program implemented by the City of Kingston department of recreation. Methods This qualitative study was guided by Social Marketing principles (i.e., the “4 P’s”: Product, Price, Promotion, Place). Key informants, 18 parents of children 4 to12 years old from 16 different neighbourhoods located in a mid-size Canadian city, participated in 4 focus groups and 7 interviews. Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis involved both deductive and inductive content analysis. Results Parental intentions to enrol their children in an outdoor activity program were shown to be influenced by barriers and facilitators, related to Product and Price, contained within the following themes, ranked from most to least influential: program safety, program social environment, program structure, child preferences, cost and convenience, skills development, variety of activities, community, the local level, and, staff engagement. The influence of these themes on parental intentions seems to be moderated by the theme of Information transfer, related to Promotion. Place was not found to influence intentions. For each theme, a continuum emerged, encompassing both positive and negative influences (e.g. high program safety to lack of program safety) upon parents’ intentions to enrol their children in an outdoor activity program. Conclusions The Social Marketing Framework is useful to inform the development of an action planning framework for recreation providers seeking to enhance enrollment in their outdoor activity programs. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2014-05-30 10:22:07.963

4 pp. / Recently, a number of global positioning system (GPS) devices have been introduced commercially which exploit GPS, transforming frequent measurements of time and location, into an estimate of energy expenditure. This fact sheet reviews how GPS watches (GPS fitness units) measure energy expenditure of individual during physical activity. We list popular GPS watches that are on the market and showed pros and cons of these watches. After our field testing, we decided that Garmin Forenunner 305 is our best pick for the GPS watch. We included information on Geocashing, which is one of popular outdoor activities using GPS receiver or other navigational techniques.

While the health benefits of physical activity are commonly recognised, increasing evidence indicates that significant percentages of children, particularly girls, are not sufficiently physically active. Children spend a large proportion of their waking day at school; however their opportunities to be physically active during the school day, beyond the traditional PE lesson and break times, are limited. Increasing children’s levels of physical activity during their time at school may be a key approach to increasing children’s overall levels of physical activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the outdoor education programme ‘Forest School’ as a source of school based physical activity. A review of existing research showed that there had been no rigorous evaluation of physical activity during Forest School sessions. A two phase mixed method design was used. The first phase used a repeated measures controlled design to objectively measure the amount, intensity, duration and frequency of the participants’ (n26 age 9-10) physical activity during Forest School. The second phase used semi-structured paired interviews (n24 age 10-11) to understand the subjective experience of the Forest School physical activity. The study was conducted in the central belt of Scotland. The results showed that during Forest School sessions the participants engaged in a significantly greater total amount of physical activity, at a higher intensity, and with a greater frequency of longer bouts, in comparison to the typical school days. The children were also shown to reach the recommended hour of MVPA during the Forest School sessions. The children reported enjoying and appreciating the opportunity to be physically active in an environment they had little previous experience of using. Existing barriers to physical activity in other contexts, in particular bad weather and low motivation, did not appear to be relevant at Forest School. The inequality in levels of physical activity and motivation to be physically active, between males and females, was shown to typically be lower on the Forest School days. The findings suggest participation in Forest School resulted in greater quantities of inclusive and enjoyable physical activity at higher intensities than otherwise experienced at school.

Revised; Originally published: 10/2008 / 3 pp. / Recently, a number of global positioning system (GPS) devices have been introduced commercially which exploit GPS, transforming frequent measurements of time and location, into an estimate of energy expenditure. This fact sheet reviews how GPS watches (GPS fitness units) measure energy expenditure of individual during physical activity. We list popular GPS watches that are on the market and show pros and cons of these watches. After our field testing, we decided that the Garmin Forerunner 305 is our best pick for the GPS watch. We included information on geocaching, which is one of several popular outdoor activities using a GPS receiver or other navigational techniques.

The aim of this study is to examine how preschool teachers conduct teaching in the preschool yard and how they implement the preschool curriculum. The idea behind this study is based on the idea that outdoor activity should be a place where children have the right to teaching and education as well as free play. Our research questions are: How do preschool teachers interpret and incorporate outdoor activity in the curriculum? Which of the elements of the curriculum are implemented in outdoor activities? How is the outdoor environment and its materials used educating preschool children in the preschool yard?  To collect the empirical data, we have chosen to use qualitative interviews that we analyzed from thematic analysis, curriculum theory and framework factor theory. The results of this study show that since the preschool curriculum is an interpretable control document the preschool teachers highlights different parts from it to implement in the yard. All of the teachers taught natural science outdoors. The results of the study suggest that learning in this environment provides the ideal setting for spontaneous curiosity and discovery as well as planned learning outcomes. Physical activity was another topic implemented at most preschools. The results also show that varying framework factors affect the preschool teachers' work. The number of children spending time together in the same setting is a critical factor affecting education and learning in the preschool yard. Another is time for reflection and planning and collaboration between different groups at the preschool. Even the design of the yard was a factor that affects the outcome and possibilities of education and teaching. Furthermore, the results implied that although free play was widely acknowledged as valuable time in the preschool yard most preschool teachers felt limited and dissatisfied with the teaching and education carried out in there.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka lärares uppfattningar om utomhuslärandet som lärandeverktyg i undervisningen och elevers uppfattning om lärandet utomhus. Studien genomfördes i två städer med fem lärare och 113 elever i årskurs ett till sex. Metoderna som användes var kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer och kvantitativa enkäter. Resultatet analyserades med hjälp av dialektiken och den hermeneutiska cirkeln. Det mest framträdande i analysresultatet var att lärarna har en positiv uppfattning om utomhuslärandet som lärandeverktyg i undervisningen. Analysresultatet visade också att undervisning utomhus kan vara svårt att bedriva på grund av olika hinder. I analysen av enkätmaterialet framkom att eleverna ser undervisningen utomhus som något som de vill ha mer utav och att de tyckte att det var roligare att bedriva undervisning utomhus. / The study's purpose was to examine teacher’s perceptions of outdoor learning as learning tools in teaching and students conception of learning outdoors. The study was conducted in two cities with five teachers and 113 students in grades one to six. The methods used were qualitative semi-structured interviews and quantitative surveys. The results were analyzed using the dialectic and the hermeneutic circle. The most prominent of the analysis result was that the teachers have a positive perception of the outdoor learning as learning tools in teaching. Analysis results showed that outdoor education can be difficult to conduct because of various obstacles. The analysis of questionnaire data revealed that students see learning outdoors as something that they want more of and that they thought it was fun to teach outdoors. / <p>Godkännandedatum: 2015-06-04</p>

This study is designed to know contribution of local community based outdoor activities for education for sustainability. 7 teachers from Sweden and 7 teachers from Korea got involved in this study and they chose and conducted one activity from the 17 activities that I offered. After they had done the activity with their upper 13 years old students, they completed questionnaire about the conditions of class, the reason of their choice, advantages/disadvantages of the activities and the actual obstacle they had in schools to have outdoor class through open-ended questions. They also were asked to answer level of integrating subjects in social studies by Likert scale, offered opinions about relevancy to sustainability with principles and analyzed the activity with 4 ways of knowing. These three questions are asked to know the contribution of the activities for education for sustainability. This research offers comparison of teachers‘ opinion and educational condition from two countires when having the activities and how the activities are conducive to education for sustainability. In addition, it provides 17 activities which can be useful to social studies teachers who are interested in local community based outdoor activity.

This is a study where the purpose was to investigate whether preschool teachers have a positive or negative attitude to outdoor education. Their view of outdoors education is also treated. The methods used were questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The survey was sent to all preschool teachers in three municipalities and on a social network. The interviews were conducted at a preschool, which had a form of outdoor profile. The survey shows that preschool teachers mostly have a positive attitude towards outdoor education but that there are also negative connections to it. They use both the material found in nature and takes the finished materials outside. My conclusion is that many see outdoor education as something positive, but it is still not many who consider themselves to use it in the preschool. / Detta är en undersökning där syftet varit att undersöka huruvida pedagoger har en positiv eller negativ syn på utomhuspedagogik. Deras syn på utomhuspedagogik behandlas även. Metoderna som använts är enkät och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Enkäten skickades ut till samtliga pedagoger i tre kommuner samt på ett socialt nätverk. Intervjuerna genomfördes på en förskola som hade en form av utomhusprofil. Undersökningen visar att pedagoger mestadels har en positiv inställning till utomhuspedagogik men att det även finns negativ koppling till det. De använder både material som finns i naturen och tar med sig färdigt material inifrån. Min slutsats som jag kan dra av denna undersökning är att många ser utomhuspedagogik som någonting positivt, men att det ändå inte är många som anser sig använda det i verksamheten.

Aspects of the living environment can affect health and wellbeing of children and adolescents. Whereas most previous studies assessed the more distant residential urban environment, less is known on possible effects of the close environment. The present study investigated associations of the proportion of streets and green spaces in the immediate urban living environment (50, 100 and 400 m around the home) with media use, outdoor activity, overweight/obesity and emotional problems in two samples of younger (age 3–10, n = 395) and older children (age 10–19, n = 405). Independently of socioeconomic parameters, a higher proportion of streets was associated with overweight/obesity (in younger and older children), higher media use (in younger children), less outdoor activity and more emotional problems (in older children). Older children’s outdoor activity in winter increased with increasing proportions of green spaces. The observations suggest that the immediate urban living environment is a factor that can affect leisure behavior and health in children.

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