School playgrounds - Playground@Landscape

A ll children enjoy physical play – and this is not just a synonym for
aimless running around and screaming. Through play, they become
bodily active and learn more about themselves and the spatial
and physical nature of their environment. While children explore their
surroundings through play, they can construct an image of the world
around them. They not only take pleasure in their own activities, but
also experiment to find out what they can achieve. A child sitting on
a swing, for example, will carefully try out various body postures to
see how much they can enhance or slow its movements. All the information
passed to the brain is filtered, sorted and emotionally evaluated
in the limbic system. When a challenge is successfully mastered,
the level of the transmitter substance dopamine is elevated and this
leads to a sensation of well-being. This means that someone in the
process of learning something thus becomes eager to learn more.
Child’s play makes you clever. Sport is the source of an exercise-orientated
society. Mental alertness is promoted through physical fitness.
All are concepts endorsed by Professor Renate Zimmer.
“Because of the developing trend towards introducing all-day
schooling in Germany in recent years, it is become particularly
important to ensure that the quality of recreation time in the
playground is adapted to the needs of children and adolescents. In all
educational decision-making, greater emphasis must be placed
in future on the function and significance of the school playground as
a factor determining the healthy physical and mental development
of children,” explains Claudia Gust (SIK-Holzgestaltungs GmbH).
When it comes to designing school playgrounds, it is the obligation
of local government and school authorities to ensure not only
that the financial resources are provided, but also that children and
adolescents are actively involved. Participation is the watchword and
research must not be ignored. There are many ways in which active
involvement can be promoted – through such programs as the Ideen-
MachenSchule [Making Schools Work] project, for example. However,
such projects should have one aspect in common: they need to be
aimed at improving the school environment and facilitating physical
recreational activities. Even the power supplier E.ON Thüringer
Energie recognises the value of such projects and has donated d1000
towards its realisation. So there are other coffers from which it is possible
to obtain funding.
In Nuremburg, the idea of making school playgrounds available for
recreation outside school hours is not a recent concept. As early as
1955, the city’s education and culture committee passed the following
resolution: In order to ensure that schools can make a tangi-
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