Title |
The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review |
Design |
Systematic review |
Participants |
Children aged 2-9 year old |
Intervention |
Exposure or intervention involved unstructured, free play within nature (forest, green spaces, outdoors, gardens) and included natural elements (highly vegetated, rocks, mud, sand, gardens, forests and ponds or water) |
Comparator |
Traditional play space, photographs of a forest environment, controlled naturalistic environment, adventure play space, mixed play space |
Major outcomes |
Physical activity, play behaviour (cognitive play, dramatic play, social play, functional play, constructive play, symbolic play, exploratory play, dramatic play), creativity, behaviour change, emotional behaviour, motor fitness |
Settings |
Nature play space |
Main results |
- Consistent results suggest that nature play may positively impact upon children’s PA.
- Nature play had positive impacts on developmental outcomes for children, particularly in the cognitive domains of imagination, creativity and dramatic play
- Physical activity, when comparing nature play to traditional outdoor play spaces, was shown to offer similar PA outcomes
|
Conclusion |
Nature play had consistent positive impacts on physical activity outcomes and cognitive play behaviours (imaginative and dramatic play). |
Link |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229006 |
Reference |
Dankiw, K. A., Tsiros, M. D., Baldock, K. L., & Kumar, S. (2020). The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review. PLoS ONE, 15(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229006 |