The Magic of Play: Types of Play That Support Early Childhood Development

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  International Darwin Day and the Evolution of Playgrounds

  International Darwin Day and the Evolution of Playgrounds International Darwin day is February 12th, so in honor of that, let’s take a look at the evolution of playgrounds. In the grand scheme of things, the late 1800’s wasn’t that long ago.  We had cars, cameras, telephones, record players, electric lighting, and typewriters, but pretty much no playgrounds.  They weren’t a thing.  Very uncommon and if you did find one, it was what the name says; a place (ground) where children played.  The idea was to give kids a place to play that wasn’t in the street. Cars evolved from the three-wheeled Benz, of Mercedes fame, that didn’t even have a proper steering wheel, to the luxurious, practically self-driving, AI machines of today.  Cameras are phones.  Wait … phones are cameras?  Actually, phones are also “record players”, but vinyl is making a huge comeback.  Lighting went from that single brownish incandescent bulb that didn’t really illuminate the far corners of the house to the multi-hued, multi-colored, variable brightness, illumination experience we fully control with our … phones.  Typewriters are now a software program ...
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  The Science of Successful Playground Designs

  The Science of Successful Playground Designs Raising the Bar on Effective Playground Equipment Design Raise the bar? Seriously, the only time I want the bar raised is if I'm in a limbo contest. The origin of this phrase comes from literally raising the bar in the track and field high jump. You've cleared the last height, so it makes sense to raise that bar to see if you can clear the next height and so on. Outside of track and field, we often see this concept get misused and mis-strategized throughout many industries. "We're going to raise the bar, because you didn't clear the last one." That … seems counterproductive. "Try harder" isn't much of a strategy. "Jump higher" isn't a plan. Instead, let's find out why and work together on elevating the skills, techniques, mindset, focus, physical requirements, and whatever else is involved in a given sport, skill, course, or occupation. Custom Playgrounds Designed for Development Raising the bar also refers to raising standards or expectations. Expecting more of others or even ourselves isn't a strategy either. By itself, it's just an unrealistic expectation, backed ...
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  About the Whole Flower, Bee, Playground, Child, Community Analogy

  About the Whole Flower, Bee, Playground, Child, Community Analogy “A flower is simply a weed with a good marketing budget.” – Rory Sutherland A weed gets no love, but a colorful flower gets bees.  More bees, more pollination, more flowers.  The landscape is enriched with beautiful weeds; eh … flowers.  But it’s not just flowers.  These bees will pollinate and fertilize other plants that produce seeds, and the entire habitat continues to grow and thrive, supporting other animals.  Life proliferates harmoniously.     Without these flowers, there would be no bee activity, and no pollination or fertilization of more than 70 crop species out of 100 that feed around 90% of the world’s population.  No honey either. Our world and lives would become much harsher, bland, and devoid of many things. Because of these well-marketed weeds, the bees get excited and that communicates joy and excitement to other bees that also visit the flowers and that’s how all of this works.  Everything is positively affected exponentially. To paraphrase Mr. Sutherland, a playground is a park with a good marketing budget.  It makes the landscape more ...
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  5 Reasons that Outdoor and Indoor Fitness Equipment Are Not the Same and 4 Tips to Design the Best Outdoor Fitness Area

  Five Reasons that Outdoor and Indoor Fitness Equipment Are Not the Same and Four Tips to Design the Best Outdoor Fitness Area Back when I was in the commercial fitness equipment industry, we did a lot of R&D, prototype design, testing, and product development.  And that’s just for one machine; say an arm-curl/biceps machine.  These are called single-station strength machines, which means that one entire machine is specifically designed for one muscle or muscle group, like the upper arm/biceps.  Then there are like twenty other machines to hit the rest of the body. But one entire machine, just for one specific exercise.  Then we would take the “finished” product to the next trade show to see how an actual human related to it.  These people ranged from gym owners, to fitness enthusiasts, to professional bodybuilders.  And they were quite critical. “The resistance falls off at the end”, “I don’t like the weight ratio”, “the range of motion isn’t fluid all the way through”, and so on.  At a fitness equipment trade show, before the actual hall opens officially, there’s a time period ...
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  The Art, Science, and Consequences of Playground Color Schemes

  The Art, Science, and Consequences of Playground Color Schemes If we need a hammer drill, would we go to a furniture store?  How about a suit or a dress?  Would we go to Best Buy?  We wouldn’t go to GameStop for a ping pong table no more than we’d go to an appliance store to buy a watch or a purse or makeup or shoes or … okay, you get the picture.    What if there was a store like that?  Well … there was and it was called Sears.  One of the biggest reasons Sears ceased to exist is that they became everything and nothing at the same time.  Sears lost it’s identity because, according to George Troy, author of the Five Laws of Retail, upper management focused on financial shell games to enrich themselves personally and to appear successful in the short term.  They profited, but at the cost of killing Sears. Back in the 1980’s Pepsi’s marketing department launched the Pepsi Challenge.  Pepsi vs Coca Cola in a blind taste test and guess what; most people picked Pepsi.  Great ...
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  When a Playground is the Content and the Context, We All Win

  When a Playground is the Content and the Context, We All Win “Picture a flower.  Then … picture a flower in a field or completely by itself.  Or a flower on a gravestone, and then picture that same flower in the barrel of a gun.  The context changes the content and the background of a picture changes the subject.” – Rick Rubin To continue with Rick Ruben’s thought, when we see a picture of a flower sticking out of the barrel of a gun, some of us will see a message of peace, while others will see the destruction of peace.  In either case, the gun is not the main subject.  It’s about the flower.  But if we see peace, we see that the flower is affecting the gun.  If we see the destruction of peace, we see the gun affecting the flower and what it represents.  As Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not so much what we look at that matters.  It’s what we see.” While context and background can affect the perception of the content, how we see it and ...