2018 Children, Youth and Environments Children, Youth and Environments 28(2), 2018 Reflections on the Challenges to Providing Optimum Environments for Play John H. McKendrick Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University Glasgow, Scotland Janet Loebach Centre for Addiction and Mental Health London, Canada Theresa Casey International Play Association: Promoting the Child’s Right to Play Edinburgh, Scotland Citation: McKendrick, J. H., Loebach, J., & Casey, T. (2018). Reflections on the challenges to providing environments for play. Children, Youth and Environments, 28(2), 262-272. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=chilyoutenvi Returning to Challenges Outlined in General Comment No. 17 This special issue of Children, Youth and Environments has outlined visions to create better play environments, reflected on the fusion of nature in everyday play, considered how play could be better facilitated for particular groups of children, and shown how technology could be used to the advantage of understanding and facilitating play. In conclusion, we reflect on the learning that is pertinent to each of the 11 challenges that were identified in General Comment No. 17. We end by reflecting on the role of experts in improving children’s play. Lack of Access to Nature The benefits for children of providing experiences to encounter the natural world through play are articulated in General Comment No. 17, noting that urban children in low-income families may have particularly poor access. The benefits do not only accrue to children; seeds for stewardship for the Earth’s resources can be sown through childhood play. Lack of access to nature is not universal. Profice and Tiriba (“Living and Playing in Nature: Daily Experiences of Tupinambá Children”) describe how indigenous education in Brazil facilitates engagement with nature. Outdoor play routinely and extensively utilizes the natural environment. These experiences respect community traditions, which include encouraging knowledge to be shared across generations. Reflections on the Challenges to Providing Optimum Environments for Play 263 The affordance of the local natural environment—rivers, trees, embankments—are utilized in daily play within the school day, with teachers presenting as both relaxed and engaged, encapsulated in their description as being “attentive to the safety of all, but not waiting for imminent disaster.” The young Tupinambá people convey strong positive associations with nature. Similarly, drawing from the IPA’s Access to Play in Crisis, in “Children's Coping, Adaption and Resilience through Play in Situations of Crisis,” Chatterjee shows how ready access to rivers for the children of both the Nimtola Ghat community in Kolkata and the Saphan Pla community southwest of Bangkok provides an exciting natural play resource, albeit one which is fraught with social and environmental danger. In these “crisis” situations, the key issue might be better understood as lack of access to “nature without danger.” Living in a rural area does not ensure access to nature in play. As Terada, Ermilova and Kinoshita explain in “Why Do We Need Adventure Playgrounds in Rural Areas? The Revitalization Project of Ishikawa, Fukushima, Japan,” rural depopulation has changed the landscape and play culture in parts of rural Japan to the point at which it has become necessary to stimulate environment-based play in some rural areas. The intergenerational evidence that the authors present provides powerful evidence of the loss of nature-based play in Japan in recent times; for example, 79 percent of parents reported that, as children, they went to the forests and hills to play, compared to only 37 percent of today’s children. This loss is also evident for playing in rivers, climbing trees, making fires and other dimensions of natural play. Access to nature can also be created in what is presented as “natural playscapes.” These manufactured environments are designed to provide opportunities to engage nature. Schlembach, Kochanowski, Brown and Carr explore “Early Childhood Educators Perceptions of Play and Inquiry on a Nature Playscape” on a university campus in North America. Initial concerns over risk and danger are allayed as early educators report how the natural playscape is encountered as relaxing space for both parents and children alike, and a place in which behaviors are improved, interactions among children are extended, and a range of opportunities to develop competencies present. On the other hand...