TD Friends of the Environment has awarded a grant to Humber to support a new research facility to study the effects of children’s engagement with the natural world.
The innovative play space will function as an interdisciplinary living research lab: a facility in which students and faculty from a variety of programs will be able to study the impacts of nature-based play and teaching strategies on factors such as early child development, environmental education, injury prevention, and endemic childhood health concerns including obesity. Humber is excited to participate in the growing body of research surrounding children and nature. The outdoor learning environment will be one of the first of its kind in Ontario. It will function as an on-going teaching and learning facility for staff, faculty and researchers to collaborate on the exploration of emerging socio-environmental theories.
The foundational research for this project was supported by a Humber Staff Initiated Research (SIRF) grant to Julie Valerio, a faculty member in the School of Health Sciences, and a Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation (CONII) grant. Industry partner Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds is working in collaboration with the Humber School of Health Sciences and the Humber Research Office to build the new research facility. Construction of the new outdoor learning environment will take place over the summer. Dean of Health Sciences, Jason Powell, confidently expects a September opening.
Adam Bienenstock, founder of Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, incorporates his love of nature into his designs. Believing that outdoor play spaces have been flattened and sterilized in recent decades, he approached Julie Valerio, Professor of Early Childhood Education at Humber, to research the differences in child play patterns in ‘naturalized’ and more ‘traditional’ or manufactured play spaces. With the support of Bridget Woodcock, Director of the Humber Child Care Centre, and the Child Care staff, students in the ECE diploma and degree programs are collecting and coding data on how children use the current playground; this will provide a baseline for comparison with behavior in the new outdoor play environment.
Students in the Interior Design program are competing to design a component to be included in the new facility. A unique, inclusive element of the new outdoor learning environment will be supported by the Humber Aboriginal Resource Centre. Students in the School of Applied Technology will participate in the building of the new facility. The build of Bienenstock’s design on site at Humber is greatly anticipated.
Thank you and congratulations to the administration, faculty, staff and students who have collaborated and are continuing to work together on this project.
