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If you’re worried children don’t play outside enough anymore, a local expert is working to change that.
A huge funding announcement for College research projects advocating childhood outdoor play has an Okanagan connection.
Dr. Beverlie Dietze, Okanagan College’s Director of Learning and Teaching, is working to move training and programing for Early Childhood Educators’ (ECE) forward to include the benefits of unstructured, outdoor play.
The Lawson Foundation announced funding for 14 projects across Canada as part of its $2.7 million Outdoor Play Strategy, and Dietze received a significant national funding boost on Thursday.
Dietze is leading the project at Okanagan College, with partners across the country.
She received a $195,000 grant to work on a training model for ECEs, with a focus on kids playing outside.
The course will be available online, or by book, at no cost to participants.
“Our research leading up to now has shown a serious gap across the country in accessible and affordable training about the immense benefit outdoor play has on children’s development,” said Dietze, in a statement. “Our aim is to provide the tools and necessary knowledge about outdoor play discovery and learning that will encourage those teaching our children to make it a priority in their programming.”
The project will cover different aspects of outdoor play like open space, intelligent materials, physical literacy, indigenous outdoor play practices, risk taking, accessibility, and diversity in children’s outdoor play needs.
They hope it will help the 400 ECEs working in childcare centres in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario, and post-secondary institutions in the country, in order to improve future training.
“We are always proud to exemplify how Okanagan College contributes to the advancement of Canadian post-secondary education by innovation in teaching methods,” said Okanagan College President Jim Hamilton, also in a statement. “Beverlie’s accomplishment with developing this project demonstrates how we achieve our commitment to excellent teaching, programming and applied research.
“We thank the Lawson Foundation for their support in making this project a reality through this important funding contribution,” expressed Hamilton.
Dietze said, overall, it’s all about the kids.
“Ultimately, our collective goal is to get children outside to play, imagine, and explore,” explains Dietze. “Outdoor play has been proven to boost children’s overall health and wellness, academic performance, self-esteem and connections to environmental aesthetics and sustainability.”
Dietse’s project was one of 12 picked for funding, out of 263 proposals received.
The projects were chosen based on their interest in exploring unstructured outdoor play that encourages kids to take risks, demonstration of being early adopters in the belief of outdoor play benefits, and examples of expertise in the subject.
Dietze has been recognized as a leading Canadian research expert in the field of outdoor play as part of early childhood education.
Lately, she has worked with landscape architects in the Okanagan, improving outdoor play places here and in other parts of the country.
For additional details about the Lawson Foundation’s Outdoor Play Strategy visit their website.
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