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Health, Wellbeing & Development

We are recruiting a Project Coordinator to join our Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play research-practice-policy partnership. This role is specifically focused on managing our SPROUT-Able project, exploring how to support children with disabilities in outdoor play and learning in natural spaces! For more details see the job description below: CCOP Project Coordinator Posting Dec 2025...

Thank you to Dr. Louise de Lannoy, Executive Director, Outdoor Play Canada, and Kim Hiscott, Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Fleck Children's Services, for providing this post. Why play outside when its cold? What are the benefits? The health benefits of outdoor play are clear and wide-reaching… but what about in winter time? Is it safe to play...

Thank you to Dr Monica McGlynn-Stewart, professor at George Brown College, for providing this guest post. In our recent article we discuss a three-year qualitative research study (2020-2023) in which we explored the impact on early years educators’ knowledge, perspectives, and pedagogies when introduced to Indigenous perspectives on Land-Based Learning in 10 urban preschool early learning...

Thank you to Michelle Stahlhut, Forsker, PT, PhD (Center for Klinisk Forskning og Forebyggelse) for providing this post on behalf of the Danish MOVEOUT-SPECIAL Project Team. Researchers from the Danish MOVEOUT-SPECIAL project have published a scoping review highlighting what is currently known about education outside the classroom (EOtC) for children with neurodevelopmental disorders in special education...

(This posting was originally published on the HALO website) Congratulations to OPC team members Drs. Mark Tremblay (OPC Board President), Louise de Lannoy (Executive Director) and Maeghan James (Postdoctoral fellow) on their presentations at the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) Congress, June 11-14, 2025! See the presentations below. Duncan S, Tremblay MS, de Lannoy...

Thank you to Dr. Kerry Crofton for providing this post. This article was originally published in Mindful. In the summer of 2014, I participated in the first-ever digital detox retreat, Camp Grounded in Northern California. My camp name was Momma Zen. Each morning, I led mindfulness practice to ease the adult campers’ edgy tech cravings, guiding them through simple breath...

Thank you to Dr. Yang Liu, Professor in Physical and Health Education, School of Physical Education, Shanghai University of Sport, China and Ms. Bei Liu, Master student in Physical and Health Education, School of Physical Education, Shanghai University of Sport, China  for providing this post.  The preschool period is a critical window for the development of...

April 24th is Healthy Environments for Learning Day, led by the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health & Environment! The 2025 campaign centers on protecting children from extreme heat in schools and child care settings (including outdoor play and learning spaces) in Canada. This campaign has been co-signed by 40+ organizations, including Outdoor Play Canada. Check-out the full...

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,...