As part of our commitment to equitable access and national representation, Outdoor Play Canada is pleased to announce two grants to support attendance at the Breath of Fresh Air (BoFA) Summit 2025! The BoFA Travel Grant will support travel to the 2025 Breath of Fresh Air (BoFA) Outdoor Play Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, for up to 15...
Thank you to Iryna Demchenko for providing this post. This post summarizes a service spotlight article titled “Celebrating a decade of the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance and its Global Matrix initiative,” recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Regular physical activity is important for children's growth and development. However, in the last decades,...
Outdoor Play Canada is thrilled to announce that registration is open for the 2025 Breath of Fresh Air (BoFA) Outdoor Play Summit until September 10th! The BoFA Outdoor Play Summit will once again take place at Wesley Clover Parks in Ottawa, Ontario, from September 25-27, 2025, in partnership with the CHEO Research Institute, Andrew Fleck...
The Outdoor Learning School and Store is offering a free virtual workshop titled Outdoor Learning in the Early Years. This expert-led session features an incredible panel of educators, researchers, authors, and practitioners who will share practical tools, resources, and ideas to enhance your outdoor learning practices, specifically tailored for the early years. Among the esteemed...
Outdoor Play Canada is looking to hire a full-time Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play (CCOP) Fellow for one year to build capacity and thought-leadership for outdoor play stakeholders. As the CCOP Fellow, your role will be to lead advocacy and thought-leadership initiatives for the promotion of outdoor play in the early years, in collaboration with...
Are you worried about the winter blues? Celebrating its 10th year in the UK and 2nd here in Canada, RED (Rise Every Day) January is a nationwide community that's open to individuals and teams of all ages and abilities. RED's philosophy is to empower all of us to move and boost our mood in the...
Since 2020, the PaRx Prescription for Nature program has meant that physicians first in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario (and now many more) could prescribe a Parks Canada Discovery Pass to their patients for the purposes of promoting physical and mental health. A collaboration between PaRx, an initiative driven by health care professionals that promotes...
Registration for the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario's Annual Make Peace with Winter Conference is now open! The conference runs from the evening of Friday, January 24 to mid-day Sunday, January 26, 2025 at Camp Kawartha. This year's theme of "Winter's Embrace" encourages us to discover ways to engage with outdoor education in the winter...
Thank you to Dr. Mark Tremblay, OPC President and Senior Scientist at the CHEO Research Institute, for providing this post. Holiday gift ideas are often traditionally centered around material items, most of which being items that are not essential or needed and likely superfluous. Such things fill closets and cupboards, consume resources (natural and financial), and...
This new two-part Lancet series, delivered by the Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN), explores the "next 1,000 days" of a child's life, covering the critical developmental period from ages two to five. The series highlights the importance of this developmental period, explores care environments, risks, and protective factors shaping development, assesses access to nurturing care, and...
