Research
Investigating the Effect of Curricular and Environmental Change on Outdoor Physical Activity of Schoolage Children
Thirty years ago, children spent the bulk of their recreational time outdoors, engaged in rich physical play activity on sidewalks, in streets, playgrounds, parks, greenways, industrial facilities, and all manner of "left over spaces" (Moore, 1986 and 1987). The environment of today's children is radically different.
Motivation to Move
The goal of this cross sectional, multi-method study is to investigate the association between different types of play area designs in childcare centers and physical activity of 3-5 year old children. A key purpose of the study is to influence childcare licensing policy and accreditation regulations so that outdoor play areas include characteristics that support daily physical activity of preschool children.
Investigating Parks for Active Recreation for Kids (I-PARK)
A goal of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. When appropriately designed and managed, neighborhood sidewalks and streets, and local parks and playgrounds are children’s most popular neighborhood play places. When designed as meaningful desinations, parks should motivate children to walk/bike/skate to make frequent trips (getting to parks as well as being in parks) to help satisfy the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended 60 minutes a day of moderate or vigorous physical activity. Safe routes to and from parks, which depend on neighborhood form and context, are as important as the physical attributes of parks themselves.
NLI collaborated with NC State University colleagues to implement the interdisciplinary I-PARK research project, which employed a two-nested ecological systems perspective to integrate social-environmental (neighborhood characteristics and park characteristics) and individual characteristics.
Measuring Physical Activity Affordances in Preschool Outdoor Environments
NIEHS Obesity and the Built Environment R-21 RFA-ES-04-003
Childcare and child developoment centers have become the places where the majority of young children spend most of their waking hours almost every day of the year. If enrolled as infants less than a year old, the total amount hours spent in centers closely matches those spent in a child's remaining school career through grade 12. Considering how critical early childhood is to children's health and future success in life, it can be argued that the environmental quality of early childhood settings where children spend the majority of their time is equally important. The quality of the center outdoor environment is particularly relevant because this is where children can learn to be physically active, can be motivated to play in nature, and feel comfortable outdoors – lifestyle habits that may persist in later life.
Head Start Growth and Readiness in the Outdoor World (HS-GROW)
Over 8 million children in the U.S., including almost one million Head Start and Early Head Start children, receive childcare away from their families for 35 hours a week or more. This includes three out of every four children four years of age or younger as well as four out of five five-year-olds. As children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start live in low resource communities, it is even more important than for other children that the places where they spend the majority of their waking hours are high quality environments. This is especially important for those children living in apartments without access to safe outdoor environments.
Preschool Outdoor Environment Measurement Scale POEMS
Preschool Outdoor Environment Measurement Scale POEMS
DeBord, Hestenes, Moore, Cosco and McGinnis. 2004
Prior to POEMS, no tool was available for comprehensively assessing the quality of preschool outdoor environments. The well-known ITERS and ECERS assessment tools are almost universally applied for assessing indoor environments; however outdoor assessment items are scatterered throughout making it impossible to focus exclusively and comprehensively on the outdoor play and learning environment (OLE). The Preschool Outdoor Environment Measurement Scale (POEMS) was developed to fill this gap in assessment.
My Place by The Bay: Prepared Environments for Early Science Learning
Research supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Baseline Survey of Environmental Conditions of Outdoor Areas in North Carolina Childcare Centers
The Baseline Survey of Environmental Conditions of Outdoor Areas in North Carolina Childcare Centers was undertaken because no baseline of licensed childcare centers existed, against which cumulative improvements in childcare center outdoor environments across the state could be compared. The statewide survey was completed in 2002 with support from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. Principal Investigator was Robin Moore with Nilda Cosco, CoPI. The study results provide a baseline reference of physical conditions of outdoor areas in North Carolina childcare centers as they existed in 2002 and serves as an ongoing point of reference for on-site assessments currently gathered by NLI in the POD and Shape projects, using the POEMS tool, in a continuing effort to improve the quality of childcare environments in North Carolina.
Kids Together Playground Post Occupancy Evaluation
Even though, a conservative estimate of the number of parks and playgrounds in the US is almost 110 thousand, representing a continuing investemnt of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, almost no attempt has been made to evaluate their level of success, how much they are used, and to what extent they respond to user needs. The Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) of Kids Together Park, Cary, NC, was conducted as an initial step towards remedying the lack of research evidence that could be useful for urban recreation and park planners, designers, and policy makers.
Growing Up in Cities
By helping children to explore, get acquainted, and interact with the neighborhood (physical environment, natural elements, and people), adults can facilitate the process of turning the neighborhood into a childhood habitat. Discovering the embedded history of an old neighborhood with children means recovering the old culture and projecting it into the future.