Physical Activity Contributions From An Outdoor Education Pre-kindergarten Program

Abstract

Traditional educational practices may contribute to the overall decline in physical activity (PA) and increases in sedentary behaviors (SB) that have been documented as children age. Beginning early in children’s elementary education, unstructured activities, such as free play and outdoor time, are often replaced by activities that are more structured, teacher-led, indoors, and desk-based. Incorporating more outdoor learning opportunities into traditional educational practices may improve children’s PA profile. PURPOSE: The primary purpose of this study was to compare differences in Pre-Kindergarten children’s PA and SB between a nature-based or traditional classroom setting. METHODS: 26 children from one Pre-K program enrolled in this study. Data was collected using waist-mounted accelerometers worn for 8 days (2h45min/day) across two separate weeks in the winter and spring. During each four-day week, participants spent two days in a traditional classroom setting, and two days in a nature-based setting. Accelerometer data was analyzed using Butte (2013) cutpoints. One-tailed paired t-tests were used to detect significant differences (p<0.05) in PA and SB between settings. RESULTS: In a nature-based setting, significantly more time was spent in moderate- to vigorous-intensity PA during Unstructured (Diff: 8.0±9.9% of Wear Time [WT]; p<0.001) and Structured time (Diff: 1.4±2.9% WT; p=0.011). Significantly less time was spent in SB during Unstructured (Diff: -3.1±7.1% WT; p=0.017) and Structured time (-2.5±6.1% WT; p=0.023) in a nature-based setting. Significantly more time was spent outside (Diff: 35min; p<0.001) in a nature-based setting, however significantly less time (Diff: -2.9±3.0min; p<0.001) was allocated to Unstructured free play. There were no significant differences in the amount of time participants spent in Structured time (Diff: 1.4±7.9min; p=0.375) between class settings. CONCLUSION: Children engaged in significantly more PA and less SB while learning outdoors compared with indoor learning, despite less time being allocated to free play. Modifying educational practices to include outdoor education has the potential to increase the quantity of in-school PA children accumulate while simultaneously reducing SB.