When artist and toy designer Rusty Keeler moved to the Netherlands to design playground equipment in 1991, he saw public art unlike anything he had seen in the United States: art that welcomed children, and included nature. "There were rich, playful experiences with the natural world," Keeler says. "Sculptures that you could sit on and interact with."

Keeler returned to the States in 1996 with a desire to create those kinds of experiences for children here: "Children needed a new kind of playscape," Keeler says, "and there needed to be a new way of thinking about the design of children's spaces."

Keeler founded Planet Earth Playscapes of Ithaca, New York, a company that designs one-of-a-kind, natural, community-built playgrounds for children. "It's important to bring the cycles of life into children's learning environment, from watching trees bloom in the spring to apples growing in fall to harvesting that fruit," Keeler says.

His company has designed 10 playgrounds in central New York, and one in Bellingham, Washington. This year, Playscapes is extending its reach to Texas and North Carolina. Keeler has designed these natural learning environments for public elementary schools, child care centers, community groups and farmer's markets, to name a few venues. The average price of a Planet Earth Playscape is from $25,000 to $30,000, although they can cost as much as $125,000. It all depends on scale and community involvement. The more volunteers and donated materials, the lower the cost to the facility.

The Playscapes Process

The first step in the Planet Earth Playscapes process is observing the children and the facility for which the playground will be designed. What is a day in the life of these children like? What are their ages, needs and current environments? Together with a committee from the facility, Keeler and his colleagues explore how the history, industry and natural resources of the area can be incorporated into the design.

Candy Meacham, an occupational therapist, hired Keeler to design a playground for the Whatcom Center for Early Learning in Bellingham, Washington. Meacham wanted an outdoor environment full of sensory experiences for the center, which serves children with special needs from birth to age three. The committee decided on a sand and water area, a textured path, an herb garden, flowers, shrubs and more.

"Kids don't spend nearly as much time outdoors as I used to growing up," Meacham says. "We wanted to provide an area that recreated some experiences we had access to when we were young."

Keeler, together with his colleagues and volunteers from the community, gathered boulders from a local river to construct a sand and water sculpture and driftwood from Bellingham Bay for climbing and decoration. They used dozens of native plants to decorate the play area. The emphasis on local materials is typical of the way Keeler likes to work. "A playground in Alabama should be different from one in Alaska," he says.

The process took two years from start to finish, with Keeler involved for one year. Building the playscape itself took four days, with staff and community volunteers lending a hand. Keeler says that much of the work is simple: shoveling and raking topsoil, planting, laying sod and having fun.

Whatcom's playscape includes a raised herb garden, a slide embedded in grass, a treehouse and a deck with a trellis. Children can play outside and explore with the five senses. "Now we have an outside area that provides us with a real learning environment," Meacham says.

Although the space is designed for children with special needs, Meacham says the details, like handrails around the bike path, aren't intrusive. "It's built so there are no barriers for kids with mobility problems," Meacham says, "but it's suitable for all children."

Play in Nature

Keeler's playscapes are part of a growing trend called "schoolyard habitats." Across the country, more and more schools are creating outdoor learning environments for children. These schoolyard habitats cut across curriculum by incorporating nature into students' everyday activities.

A 1998 study by the State Environmental Education Roundtable, an organization that works with state departments of education to facilitate schoolyard habitats, demonstrates that students learn more effectively within an environment-based context than within a traditional education framework.

The rationale, according to Mary Rivkin, author of The Great Outdoors: Restructuring Children's Right to Play Outside (NAEYC, 1995), is that children learn best not from words and pictures, but engagement with natural things. "Creativity is fostered by natural environment," Rivkin says.

Edward Klugman, professor of early care and education at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, agrees that nature is an important, and increasingly neglected, part of children's play.

"We have gotten away from really examining a square foot of environment and appreciating the grass that grows between the cement, the flowers that come up? we step on it, we ignore it, we're polluted with noise," Klugman says. "We don't even look at what is in front of us."

According to the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, the amount of free time enjoyed by children aged 13 and younger has decreased in the last twenty years, from 40 percent of the day in 1981, to 25 percent in 1997. Given a choice, children say outdoor play is one of their favorite ways to spend time: The 1996 ABC Global Kids Study reports that playing outside is the second most enjoyable activity for children ages 7 to 12 in the United States. Forty-six percent of kids ranked outdoor play as their favorite way to spend time, just behind "vacationing" (52 percent) and ahead of listening to music (40 percent).

"Children tend to be taken away from their environment into artificial environments that we create," Klugman says. Instead of indoor play centers and TV and video games, kids may benefit from exploring their natural surroundings�a less expensive and possibly more valuable venture.

Klugman is co-founder of Playing for Keeps, a national coalition that unites for the first time consumers of toys with manufacturers, retailers and distributors. The coalition also includes experts, parents and the media. Playing for Keeps is working to create a forum for dialog and action by all those who have a stake in helping children grow and develop through play.

Organizations like the National Association for the Education of Young Children have been working to ensure children's right to play as well. They report that children who have frequent access to outdoors gain competence in moving through the larger world, and lay the foundation for courage that will enable them to lead their own lives.

As a boy, Keeler explored the woods and creeks of upstate New York, surrounded by the everyday wonders of nature. Today, before he designs a playscape, he asks adults in the community to recall their childhood experiences outdoors.

It helps them to remember the importance of interacting with the world outside the door. Says Keeler, "That kind of space and freedom seems to be dwindling these days."

Resources:

• Find more information on planet earth playscapes [1] online. You can also call 800-859-4580 or e-mail Rusty Keeler [2].
• The State Education and Environmental Roundtable [3] works with state departments of education to help schools integrate the outdoors into their curriculum.