Outdoor play has so many benefits for children. It promotes healthy social and physical development, emotional wellbeing, self-confidence, risk management and overall physical activity. However, opportunities for outdoor play have been decreasing due to perceptions that it is dangerous and unnecessary. To address this, Brussoni Lab developed an online educational tool to help early childhood educators learn about the importance of outdoor play for children and provided strategies for implementation.

The Early Childhood Outside: Early Childhood Educator Tool Randomized Controlled Trial (ECO RCT) study is testing the efficacy of the online intervention tool in reframing early childhood educators’ perceptions of outdoor play and changing their service delivery to give children at their centre more opportunities for outdoor play.

Each participant completed a baseline survey and was randomized to either control or intervention condition. Participants will be invited to take two follow-up surveys after 1 week and 3 months post baseline. The study will close the survey at the end of June, 2021 and then data analysis will begin.

Visit outsideplay.ca to learn more.