A natural balance beam

Studio G has been engaged for several years in a movement to get children into nature, especially low income urban children who typically have little contact with the natural environment. After years of promoting natural play yards to child care clients, we were lucky to work with two Boston centers that received funding from the Children’s Investment Fund dedicated to the creation of natural play yards. These are outdoor play yards which emphasize open ended play in a natural surrounding: building in sand, playing in water, climbing trees, planting gardens, inspecting insects, running along a dirt track, playing in a fort built of tree branches.
What does a natural play yard have to do with that list of intractable urban problems? Children who play in nature are healthier and more fit, less prone to obesity and diet-related disease, and calmer. I will bet they are less likely to engage in violence later in their youth, though I haven’t seen statistics to document that.