Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play (CCOP) 2025-2026 Annual Report Now Available We are excited to share the CCOP 2025-2026 Annual Report!This year's report highlights the milestones, partnerships, and initiatives that have helped advance outdoor play across Canada. It showcases the collective efforts of our partners, researchers, and community members who continue to strengthen opportunities for all...
Thank you to Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput, Senior Scientist at the CHEO Research Institute, for providing this post! In a new commentary, entitled Nature as Medicine: The case for prescribing outdoor time published in Canadian Family Physician, the authors Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput and Dr. Mark Tremblay, Senior Scientists at the CHEO Research Institute, call for Canadian...
Thank you to Sam Grimmett Batt for providing this post. This article was originally published on August 5, 2026 by UK Community Foundations. My kids just broke up from school for the summer. Alongside the relief that the morning scramble is over for a time and a growing panic about filling four more weeks, I’ve been thinking...
Thank you to Tammy Potter, RECE, FNS Practitioner and Supervisor of Forest Explorers and Ottawa Forest and Nature School for providing this post! In 2025, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services, thanks to Lawson Foundation funding, partnered with Algonquin College on a year-long research project exploring the evolution of outdoor play and learning at our outdoor-focused early childhood education...
Thank you to Amy Jo, RECE, Resource Consultant with the SPROUT-Able project, CCOP and Children's Inclusion Support Services for providing this post! Take Me Outside Conference Allessia and I led a ‘mini’ World Cafe workshop - and the participants that attended were very engaged in conversations about the physical and social barriers and facilitators to outdoor play and...
Thank you to Louise Zimanyi for providing this post. This article was originally published in the Conversation. In spring, on the traditional and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, young children, Anishinaabe storytellers and educators walk together with Aki (Land) and Nibi (Water). I’m a researcher and professor of early childhood and someone of French-Canadian and Hungarian descent living as...
Thank you to Hanah and Emily with Compass Early Learning & Care for providing this post! This fall Compass Early Learning & Care will be hosting a two-day outdoor institute to slow down and reflect on what the land teaches us about care and connection. Hear from keynote speakers Anne Marie Coughlin and Grandmother Kim Wheatley who...
We are excited to share a new resource developed by the National Panel on Regulating Outdoor and Land-based ECE and supported by former BELCD students Jade Groompike, Kiera Publow, Eva Quenneville, Hannah Raudssus (who now works with OPC as a project assistant!), and Emma Zimolong: a national map tracking efforts to regulate Outdoor and Land-Based...
Thank you to Ruth Berzins from the Madiha Foundation for writing this post. This blog post was originally published on the Madiha Foundation website. Just this spring, I learned about a Canadian nature-based prescription program called “PaRx” (which is the short form for parks prescription). I’m so pleased to have the opportunity to share some of the...
Thank you to Dr. Beverlie Dietze, Dr. Kelsey Robson and Dr. Melanie Manitowabi for providing this post. This article was originally published in The Conversation. The same authors also wrote a blog post about this work for the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development’s weekly e-newsletter, published on July 21, 2026, here. Across Canada, every province and territory...
