UPDATE: The Breath of Fresh Air Summit 2023 is SOLD OUT! The Breath of Fresh Air Summit 2023 will run from September 27-29, 2023 at the Ottawa Forest and Nature School and Wesley Clover Parks Campground in Ottawa ON! This two-day Outdoor Play Summit will bring together thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, and policy makers to connect and...
Thank you to Dr. Tanya Halsall (University of Ottawa) and Dr. Louise de Lannoy (Outdoor Play Canada) for providing this post. This article was originally published in The Conversation. An important incidental change that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic has been our collective rediscovery of the outdoors. As we begin building back better, we have an opportunity...
On Friday, June 18th, OPC's Dr. Louise de Lannoy presented at the 2021 Virtual Play Conference, an annual educational conference held by the US Play Coalition. This year, due to pandemic restrictions, the conference was held online from April 1st to June 30th, 2021 with weekly networking events and presentations, recorded and available for viewing...
Thank you to Dr. Mark Tremblay, chair of Outdoor Play Canada, for providing this post. Active outdoor play for children and families is an ideal antidote for COVID-19 transmission and coping mechanism for related restrictions - provided that public health guidance is followed. Outdoor play can help to cope with, contain, and combat COVID-19 – but...
The Healthy Kids Community Challenge was a program funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care from 2015-2018 in Ontario that supported 45 communities in Ontario in improving children’s health through the promotion of healthy behaviours (improving physical activity and healthy eating, reducing screen time). Themes that were part of this program included 'Run....
Outdoor Play Canada, before its formal organization, was responsible for the development and release of the Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play in 2015. This Statement had a significant impact on uniting the Outdoor Play sector, providing direction and a common purpose – promoting children’s healthy growth and development through outdoor play. To build on and...
The Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play was released in 2015. Use these slides summarizing the Statement as a knowledge sharing, advocacy tool to support outdoor play in your community: OPC Position Statement....
On March 18, 2020, BBC News wrote an article entitled 'Coronavirus: Should you let your children play with other children?'. In the article, journalist Robin Levinson-King, from Toronto, Ontario, describes how families are wrestling with whether or not they should let their children play with others given recommendations on physical distancing. Dr. Angela Pyle, an assistant...
New research from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Health Measures Survey reaffirmed the dramatic decline in Canadian children’s fitness seen over the past 35 years with only a third of Canadian school-aged children meeting physical activity guidelines. Other research from the same survey showed that physical activity increases when children are outdoors, with each additional hour spent...
In 2017, the International Play Association hosted their Triennial World Play Conference: Unleashing the Power of Play, in Calgary, Alberta. This triennial conference is for play researchers, advocates, designers, educators, practitioners, providers, and policymakers and aims to celebrate play, understand its many benefits, and provide all children with the chance to engage in rich, meaningful,...
