Perception on Urban Greenery of Children Attending Tennis Schools in Zagreb

Today, more and more children spend their leisure time in front of TV sets, playing computer games or surfing the Internet. Less and less conscious parents send their children off to play, play sports or do extra-curricular activities in the urban landscape spaces. Apart form parks, which are the green oasis in the expanded urban surroundings there are also sport and recreational centers that are of immense importance for the cityscape as well. In the city of Zagreb users of sports and recreational centers in the outdoors are comprised by athletes of all ages regardless whether they are professionals or amateurs. A pilot research has been carried out using an anonymous questionnaire specially designed for the purposes of this research on the sample of attendants of a children tennis school in Zagreb. The purpose of the questionnaire is to determine how children attending the tennis school experience the surrounding landscapes. Preferences on greenery in sports and recreation centers were measured with question “Do you like green areas in the sports center?” and the answer that was distinctively significant in relation to other two answers was answer 1. Yes, there is an extreme statistical difference X2 = 42,515. Remaining goals concern acquiring information about children’s perception and personal experience of the space around them that has an urban horticultural and landscape character. Response analysis shows that tennis school attendants are more interested in sports programs held in nature and sport centers than in school yard. A higher number of respondents noticed green areas next to the tennis courts and perceived the beauty of the surrounding landscape