SPRING-Shadow,Pedagogy,Activity in Nature and School Ground environments

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

SPRING-Shadow,Pedagogy,Activity in Nature and School Ground environments

Background:

Harmful UV-radiation from the sun and physical inactivity among children increase the risk for unhealthiness. Physical inactivity also hinders the development of the concentration ability.

The occurrence of skin cancer is increasing for both women and men. The reason is considered to be overexposure of UV-radiation with burns (skin redness), mostly during childhood. About 80-90 percent of all skin cancer is caused by such overexposure of UV-radiation. It is already known that 20 % of the one-year-old Swedish children have been overexposed with burns as a result.

Overweight is increasing among children in the ages of pre-school and school, a problem that is to be taken seriously. Too little activity in relation to how much they eat is of great importance to this development. The share of overweight has increased in all socio-economical groups. The consequence is a risk increase of diseases and problems in the musculoskeletal system, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and risk increase of diseases, type-2 diabetes and cancer. Affect on the cardiovascular system due to overweight has been observed already with children.

The playgrounds for pre-schools and schools are arenas that reach all children and are therefore good arenas to design the work of supporting equality in health (i.e. the work is not affected by the differences among the parents regarding health, economy, educational level, etc., that are known to affect children’s health, but the work reaches all the children and has the possibility to equalise the health differences among the population). By working with outdoor environments, conditions can be made for developing sun protective behaviour, and physical activity that also favours the children’s concentration ability.

Goal and Purpose

The purpose of SPRING is to create outdoor environments at pre-schools and schools in order to stimulate physical activity, to protect against harmful UV-radiation and to increase children’s concentration ability, as well as to use the outdoor environments in the education.

The long-term goal of the project is to integrate it into regular work in the municipality, so that the aspects that SPRING are built upon are taken into consideration when new pre-schools are built and during maintenance of school grounds. This is to be achieved by creating the project within the regular work in cooperation between the administrations of the municipality.

The target groups for the project are: Children both in pre-school and in the lower grades of primary school, personnel in those schools, as well as the children’s parents.

The project is running 2009-2012