The Playground Fight: Investigation of How School Playgrounds Help Steer Children Towards Nature

This thesis examines the various roles of school playgrounds in the Lund municipality in relation to their ability to foster nature relationships in children. In the same vein, the thesis also explores the reasons behind why certain humans care more for the environment than others, especially in regard to taking pro-environmental action. Nature is explored as a positive experience which furthermore positively affects children in a numerous amount of ways such as health, cognitive development, emotionally, socially and most importantly, in the fostering of nature relationships which act as a way to fight learned helplessness. The findings of the research illustrate that although Sweden is a very environmentally forward country, the majority of school playgrounds in the Lund municipality do not project a great amount of nature or nature experiences, with the dominant ground materials on playgrounds being concrete, the most common location was suburban, and the most common activity was sports. The variety of experiences with nature or lack-thereof, explain why a certain portion of humans care more for the environment than others. Furthermore, with the predominant number of playgrounds having minimal amounts of nature experiences, it clarifies why only a small number of people take pro-environmental action