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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-03-24 Daily Xml
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Nature Play

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:26): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister advise the house on how the government is supporting children in South Australia to play outdoors more often?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:26): We will all be aware that there have been growing trends over the last several decades for children not to spend so much time outdoors and increasingly for children to be in front of screens; the screens seem to get smaller and be more portable. Of course, as parents, we all fret about the impact of that.

We know that children outside have three main benefits: one is development of their sensory capability and their physical balance and aptitude. Particularly for preschool kids, always walking on incredibly smooth surfaces and too often sitting is not good for their capacity to develop their sensory skills and, as I say, their balance skills. We also know that the more active children can be early, the more likely they are to set down those patterns for the future so they have a strong sense of physical activity being part of how they live their lives and, therefore, challenging the drift towards obesity that we have very sadly seen in the last few years.

The third benefit of children being outside is their capacity to connect with the environment. One of the things that troubled me from my previous life was the way in which, other than people growing up in the country, people living in the city tend to get very insulated from the reality of the environment. It's all too easy when it gets hot to put on the air conditioner and not to contemplate the implications of climate change, for example. It's all too easy to assume that if food isn't being grown nearby then you'll just be able to import it from further away. As I say, kids growing up in the country have a far better sense of the reality of the vagaries of climate and the impact of environmental destruction.

So, I am very pleased that part of this government's initiative is to encourage nature play and outdoor learning at the preschool level, in particular. On the weekend, I attended the Grove Kindergarten where they have, through their own funds, funded an extraordinary array of outdoor activity areas, and they hosted a workshop for early-learning educators to go through what you can do. One of the great benefits that I could see, and I heard about from there, is that not only do the children who attend that kindergarten have fantastic access to outdoor play, including what they called—and I know it's an American term—the 'bug hotel' (a place that attracts different kinds of insects and the children can nurture it and tend it and see the insects as something interesting and valuable and not simply annoyances to be squashed) but it flows over into the community, so the parents whose kids are attending there are changing their little backyards. As you know, it's in a very small block area, but they are turning them over to vegetable patches to allow a lot more interaction with nature.

Simon Hutchinson spoke, and he is a designer of playground equipment. Courtesy of him I saw that my own children's school has had a new playground recently put in. I haven't been to and from school often enough recently to have seen it myself so I was delighted to see that they have that. The idea of the playground equipment is that it be engaging for kids without being prescriptive and that there be loose pieces that kids can make things from.

So all of this is exactly what we should be doing and people will recall that the government made a commitment coming into this term that over the next four years we will be spending $6 million on 20 outdoor learning areas in preschools. Five of those are well down the track and the physical work is about to commence—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I appreciate that others are aware of this as well and I am delighted that they are so enthusiastic about it. I announced another five on the weekend and there will be another 10 to come.

The SPEAKER: Alas, the minister's time has expired. The member for Fisher.

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