Letting Play Bloom: Designing Nature-Based Risky Play for Children

Children love to play in risky—often misunderstood to mean unsafe—ways. It is often how they learn. Research shows that activities like climbing on trees and boulders, hiking in nature, and playing in a creek are excellent ways for kids to develop their creativity and their senses, because playing outdoors evokes different sights, sounds, smells, and textures.

Letting Play Bloom analyzes five outstanding case studies of children’s nature-based risky play spaces—the Slide Hill at Governors I...