NZ is 30 years ahead of North America in outdoor play
NZ is 30 years ahead of North America in outdoor play, says global expert
Do you remember
the sensation of your legs caked in cold mud? Or the thrill
of hurtling downhill on a piece of cardboard? Perhaps you
had a secret hut at the end of the garden? However you
remember your childhood, being outdoors was probably a
constant theme.
Award-winning Canadian playscape
designer Adam Bienenstock will be in New
Zealand to speak to New Zealand educators on the benefits of
integrating nature and education at the fifth annual
Natural Phenomena Conference near Whangarei this
month.
He says the message he wants to give New
Zealand is “do not use North America as your
model”. This is the first generation in history
that we as adults will have a longer lifespan than our kids.
Adam credits high rates of obesity, ADHD and other
child health concerns as exponentially increasing as kids'
connection to nature and their ability to take risks
decreases.
However, organisers of the conference say
New Zealanders could improve the way we encourage our kids
to interact with the outdoors. And they fear increasing
legislation and compliance around playground development and
etiquette could change our society for the worse.
The increasingly popular conference aims to enable
educators with tools to promote outdoor play and offset the
increasing ‘mollycoddling’ of our children in a
risk-averse society.
Several hundred teachers,
policymakers, playground designers, parks managers and
parents will gather in an outdoor setting inland from the
Tutukaka Coast to hear more than 20 speakers
including:
• Best-selling author Richard
Louv, who sparked an international movement when he
coined the phrase ‘nature-deficit disorder’. Louv,
author of The Last Child in The Woods and The
Nature Principle, suggests the disconnection of children
from nature correlates with increasing social, mental and
physical health problems.
•
• International
educationalist and author Dr Rangimarie Turuki Rose
Pere
•
• Multisport athlete and author
Steve Gurney
•
• Early
childhood consultant David
Spraggs
•
•
But surely kiwi kids get
plenty of time in nature?
One of the organisers Kate
Broughton explains it’s often not the case:
“Its worth checking in with them. Their schedules
are busier, activities more organised and any free time
competes with the ever-present lure of the
screen.”
“Mucking around outside has in some part
been curbed by greater parental concerns for safety and less
opportunity to do so.”
Conference organiser Dean
Aplin explains true to its values The Natural Phenomena is
held outdoors midst an ancient stand of trees known to many
as the Wild Woods.
“We hold the conference in the
outdoors to emulate our ideals. I don’t believe you can
fully talk about reconnecting kids with nature while sitting
inside a conference venue in downtown Auckland. Out here
we’re adding experience to theory.”
“What
excites me is what happens here,” continues Dean, “There
are sessions designed to nurture delegates as individuals.
Often conferences aren’t about that.”
Conference
organiser Jane Young says:
“It’s reminding people
what they were doing when they were four. A lot of us
haven’t realised that the freedom we had as children looks
very different now and I like drawing people’s awareness
to where we’re going as a society.”
You may
arrive in socks and shoes but chances are you’ll leave in
bare feet with your trousers rolled up.
The
5th Natural Phenomena Conference, Whangarei, 21–23
November, 2014.
ends