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Social Contexts Of Development In Natural Outdoor Environments: Children’S Motor Activities, Personal Challenges And Peer Interactions At The River And The Creek, Cara Megan King Mcclain

Masters Theses

This study examined the influence of spending time outdoors on young children’s physical and socioemotional development. We observed preschoolers’ activities in two naturally provisioned outdoor environments over the course of one year. Eleven preschoolers were videotaped continuously for 16 days at a local river and 9 days at a creek adjacent to the school. In addition to the quantitative analyses of children’s behaviors, a case study of three children’s experiences over the course of the year was conducted. Both the river and the creek settings encouraged a multitude of physical and play behaviors with similar types of affordances, including flat …