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Introduction
With growing concern around the amount of time children spend engaged with screens, geographers find themselves questioning whether outdoor spaces are conducive to play and engagement with nature. Examining the built environment through a child’s eyes, as well as understanding barriers to outdoor play, can create a meaningful fieldwork experience.
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Length of time
One hour.
Suitable locations
A local residential area, park or green space.
Equipment needed
Clipboard, pupil designed survey, digital device (which can take photographs).
Objectives and key skills
- By thinking about the play needs of both themselves and of younger or older children, pupils can develop empathetic learning skills.
- Pupils have a greater role to play in the design of the survey as the criteria are all generated from their discussion.
- Pupils use geographical observation skills: not only looking at their local environment but looking at it with a particular context in mind.
Suggested delivery
In the classroom, start by finding out how many children play outside regularly after school and how many would like to spend more time playing outside. This will give you some context as to the level of engagement with outdoor play that currently exists in your class.
Mind map with the children the features of an environment that can make outdoor play easier or harder. These might include discussions around safety, such as how cars are parked in a housing estate, access to simple equipment such as football goal posts or basketball hoops, or surface types such as grass, gravel or pavement that might make bike riding easier or more difficult.
Using the information they have generated, pupils can then design an evidence survey for playability. The survey consists of all the features that pupils have identified that would encourage or discourage them from playing outside. This can be converted into an eye-spy style tick sheet where students look for evidence in their local area.
Ideally, pupils will visit more than one location to compare the amount of playability there is in different places. For example pupils could look at the features of their local housing estate and rate the degree of playability there is for children living there. They can then compare this with a local park which perhaps has been designed with play in mind.
The location with the most evidence of features that encourage play would be deemed to have a higher score for playability. Pupils can also take photographs of new features that they find that have not been mentioned previously on their mind map (such as tall curbs that might discourage children from playing on bikes or scooters, or the presence of hazardous litter).
Back in the classroom students might like to create a design proposal for a new housing estate or a new play park which would be designed with features of greater playability in mind.
Potential risks to consider
- Crossing roads, especially around parked cars in housing estates.
- Dog faeces and hazardous litter in parks and open spaces.
Possible follow-up activities
Pupils might like to write letters to a local councillor explaining how important outdoor play is and how design features in their local area are discouraging them from doing so. Pupils could also conduct a survey among their parents and grandparents to look at how outdoor play trends have changed over time and why.
Useful links
This collection of Fieldwork activities were created by Paula Richardson and the Fieldwork and Outdoor Learning Special Interest Group (FOLSIG) for the National Festival of Fieldwork, the GA invites everyone to take part during the summer term.
