Evergreen’s National School Ground Greening program works with school boards and school communities to transform their grounds into vibrant, nature rich environments, for play and learning. As part of this program, Evergreen has launched the Climate Ready Schools project to improve the overall design, management, and educational use of schools and schoolgrounds by mitigating flood...
Since 2006, the OCDSB has offered an outdoor education experience to all OCDSB grade 3 and 7 classes through the “Every Student Attends Program”. The OCDSB “Every Student Attends Program” entitles each grade 3 & 7 class in the OCDSB to one free field trip per year to either Bill Mason or MacSkimming Outdoor Education...
Dr. Sarah Moore from the Healthy Populations Institute, Dalhousie University, is featured among a series of five whiteboard animation videos focused on ‘Staying Healthy During a Pandemic.’ In her video, Dr. Moore describes the impact of COVID-19 on the movement behaviours of children, where in Spring 2020, less than 3% of Canadian children and youth...
The Environmental Educators Provincial Specialist Association (EEPSA) in British Columbia put together a Position Statement on Education Outside the Classroom. In the Statement the authors outline the social, emotional, physical and academic benefits of spending time outside, recommendations on bringing education outdoors, as well as a call to action to discuss their recommendations, directed at...
PaRx, an initiative by BC Parks Foundation and driven by health-care professionals, is Canada's first national, evidence-based nature prescription program. The goal of PaRx is to promote prescribing time in nature for lifelong health benefit. This online resource includes useful tools to make prescribing time in nature simple, fun and effective: quick tips, patient handouts, a...
Levelling the playing fields (LTPF) is a project by the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre (MUEC) and the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal (ESPUM) to deploy free-play pilot interventions in five Canadian communities using two innovative models of re-allocating urban space in favour of young children: the school street and the play...
The Lawson Foundation’s Outdoor Play Strategy is an integral part of their strategic direction and guides their efforts in exploring how outdoor play supports the healthy development of Canadian children and youth. They initially invested $2.7 million in 14 core projects, which grew to $4.5 million in related grants. Through a third-party evaluation, the Lawson...
Outdoor Play Canada's Active Toy Guide - the holiday edition - is filled with gift ideas to help kids of all ages burn off steam, chart an outdoor adventure or just experience the joy of movement. Toys are organized into 9 categories: Classics, Family Game Time, Imagine It, Let's Play Ball, Outdoor Fun, Physical Literacy...
Dr. Michelle Stone and her team at Play Outside NS, based out of Dalhousie University, developed an outdoor loose parts play video based on their Summer of PLEY (Physical Literacy in the Early Years) knowledge translation event. The event took place in Summer 2019 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and showcases the many ways children engaged...
Children at every age need lots of active outdoor play, every day, to grow up healthy, happy, and physically literate. Yet many parents find getting kids outside isn't as easy as it sounds. Active For Life has put together a collection of articles to help parents nudge their children to lace up their sneakers and...
