by survey and informal interviews. Photos, videos and onsite observations of the school playgrounds are used to monitor and evaluate the progression of the use of unstructured materials.
Children's obesity, bullying and poor social skills represent a challenge to their mental and physical health. These three are often inter-related, but can be reversed. Many programs aiming at increasing physical activity have been implemented in the last decades, but most of them fail to have the potential to be adopted everywhere anywhere, due to structure, cost and lack of appeal to some children. This project is novel in investigating the benefits of free play on the playground for increasing physical activity and social skills in children and challenging adults to consider how their perceptions of risk may impact children's access to active free play. Due to its scope and potential to be adopted anywhere, if we have positive findings, this project has the prospect to influence policy around school-, and public playgrounds.
Acknowledgements and Funding
This project has received funding for three years from the Australian Research Council (DP0877590) as well as from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (570808).
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