Catalogue
Sustainability with/in Playgrounds
by Kelly Greene, Western’s Indigenous artist-in-residence
This topic is vital and timely during this Anthropocene era
when human activity and overpopulation has disturbed
the balance of our Earth.
One immediate solution is more respect given to this planet,
beginning with simply saying “thank you” either quietly or spoken,
remembering that she is our Mother,
who provides everything necessary to survive and thrive,
though we have disregarded this fact and taken much more than we need.
Contrastingly, if we can live in a more harmonious way,
taking less and giving more, thus offering reciprocity,
and offering these teachings to children,
perhaps those who will be alive during the next seven generations,
will live as comfortably as most do now.
Making playgrounds more sustainable
can assist with a shift to alleviate, and perhaps cease,
the unsustainable lifestyles currently enjoyed worldwide.
Perhaps offering this change of perspective to children
will help assure their survival,
since the Earth will live on,
despite repercussions from ours and past generations.
I believe playgrounds should have many natural materials and growth,
these being native species to each region, to attempt regaining
what is being overtaken by invasive, non-native plants.
Non-natural materials, such as artificial grass,
should never be used in playgrounds.
Instead, perhaps mulch could be layered if mud is a problem.
There are many varieties that would soak up water
and decompose naturally under busy feet.
Perhaps these areas can also be built up
with layers of dirt during the summer.
Then when the spring thaw happens,
there’d be no mini puddles or soggy ground.
Maybe trenches can be dug surrounding such areas,
where the excess water can pool outside chain link enclosures,
and native swamp species, like cattails, can be planted to add beauty to utility.
It’s an absolute must to include large rocks as natural seating options
that will add age-old beauty, strength, and wisdom,
since they are the oldest nations on Earth
although most people don’t consider them alive
Trees in clusters and interspersed decoratively
on otherwise barren grounds
can add a hint of forest,
which some children may not have been exposed to,
and which everyone will benefit from.
Wild areas that are left uncut with pathways throughout,
perhaps marked with flagstone, mulch or well-trodden ground
with various native plants allowed to sprawl within the trails
will not only offer another connection to nature and knowledge
of those native species planted,
but also increase one’s wonder of creation
when seeing what sprouts, full blooms, then dries as remnants,
left peeking through snow,
all phases sculptural, vital, and more visually appealing
than a flat, unimaginative plot.
Finally, the joy of preparing and tending a small garden,
even if only a few flowering species,
could be a lesson for children of all ages,
including teachers who may not do this otherwise.
Again, perhaps some pathways can be created
between the growth so all can see and enjoy
what everyone’s labour has reciprocated.
Renée Coughlin, singer, songwriter, pedagogist:
What are the practices that connect us back to who we are, inside of our bodies, so that we may know who we are within the larger body of this planet? I am a singer and a songwriter. When I use my voice in this way it causes vibration in my body. It creates a resonance that I find hard to ignore…
Shelley Brandon
RECE, Pedagogical Leadership
London Bridge
Shapeshifters
We are shapeshifters, the forest and me.
Twisting and contorting, bending and swaying.
Reshaping ourselves, redefining our identities.
She moves through her seasons like I move through moods.
Dark and stormy,
Turbulent. Passionate.
Calm and warm,
Temperate. Subdued.
Cloudy. Uncertain. Tumultuous. Still.
Vibrant. Boisterous. Confident. Brave.
Her leaves, my layers.
Beautiful and resilient, yet fragile and vulnerable to our own particular weathers.
We are storytellers, the forest and me.
Vibrant protagonists in our own lived experiences,
Each main characters in the tales of the other.
The adventurer. The risk taker, the daydreamer.
The die-hard romantic.
Our actions influence the plot, our moods elicit genres to emerge.
Suspense. Action. Comedy. Drama.
Verse by verse, chapter by chapter.
Our time together reads like an epic adventure!
Unexpected twists and turns, pivotal moments.
Pleasant surprises!
Heroic quests, secret missions,
Poetic interludes.
We are heartbreakers, the forest and me.
Coming together, drifting apart.
Long farewells, joyful reunions.
Forgiving and gracious.
Heart swells.
Open arms, a warm embrace.
Then, arrogance.
Betrayal.
Regrets and longings.
Life lessons.
Allies and enemies, we are.
The lovers and the loved.
Rallying to assume the roles of the saviour and the saved, the strong and the meek.
All-knowing and omnipotent.
We are time travellers, the forest and me.
Moving through time in a constant state of flux,
Moved by moments.
Compelled by nostalgia.
Memories of time passed, spent with and without each other.
Forever bound by the constraints of time traditional.
Compelled to live freely beyond the segmented chunks that dictate our days.
What was, what is,
What could be.
Teeming with complexity,
A delicate dance.
Infantile naivety.
Unsure. Unskilled.
Inquisitive adolescence.
Ripe with challenge and change.
Constant shifts to determine our true identities.
Growing pains.
Time marches on.
Unstoppable.
We are alive!
Struggling to survive amongst the heavy boots and constant ridicule that try to keep our liveliness at bay.
We force our way through the concrete crowds, desperately searching for our place in the sun.
I need her.
I need her, and I hope that my gentle presence is welcomed.
I hope she sees me as her kin and not some stealthy intruder with a shady agenda.
I need her, but does she need me?
Will my love sustain her?
Will my humility be reciprocated with her most precious gifts?
And in the end,
Will it be enough?
Thermal Microclimates of Playgrounds and Sustainability
James Voogt, Professor, Dept. of Geography & Environment, Western University
When thinking about playgrounds and sustainability, and more broadly, about how playgrounds can influence our thinking about sustainability, one element (of very many!) to consider is the microclimate of playgrounds. At small spatial scales, the characteristics of the surface are an important influence on the air near the surface and help to define the near-surface climate. A moist grass surface with scattered trees will have a distinctly different microclimate from that of bare, dry, treeless ground. These microclimates are generated from differences in how surfaces receive, absorb and exchange energy with the overlying atmosphere.
A playground alters the surface characteristics. This intentional alteration will affect the microclimate, as new materials and surface structures and/or configurations are introduced. We can expect to see variations in the microclimates both within the play area itself and in contrast to the broader surroundings – based on differences in the surfaces used to construct the playground. Factors including colour, porosity, imperviousness to water, density, roughness, moisture, shading, shelter from nearby objects, slope and orientation all impact the energy exchange of a surface. Through playground design and an understanding of microclimates, we also have some ability to intentionally modify playground microclimates.
Figure 2. Equivalent temperature, that represents the aggregate effects of multiple environmental factors that impact the thermal comfort of humans (air temperature, humidity, wind, etc.) and its temporal evolution over a year or over a day. From Oke et al. 2017. Urban Climates, Cambridge University Press.
Figure 1. Thermal image of a play area at the London Bridge Huron Heights captured at 14:40 local time April 19, 2023 under sunny conditions looking towards the northeast. The scale on the right shows colour mapping of surface temperatures in °C.
Playground microclimates can be defined through measurements of air temperature, humidity, wind, solar and thermal radiation. The spatial and temporal variation of these characteristics define the microclimate variations of the area. Computer-based numerical models provide another approach to characterize microclimates. These models calculate the expected characteristics of microclimate in a playground environment based on a set of physically-based equations. As a simpler measure, here we deploy a thermal imager capable of remotely measuring the temperatures of surfaces at high spatial resolution. The instrument provides an image based on energy it receives in the thermal infrared wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum from the surfaces it sees (in contrast, a photograph is an image based on energy received in the visible wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum). The surface temperature is a very sensitive measure of the surface energy balance that controls the exchange of energy between a surface and the atmosphere and thus provides a good measure of the forcing for microclimate differences.
Figure 1 shows a thermal image captured at the London Bridge Huron Heights location in the mid-afternoon of April 19, 2023. It illustrates the effect of different surfaces (grass, sidewalk, wood chips) on surface temperature, the influence of shadows on surface temperatures, and the potential for constructed play surfaces to become very hot (the slide!).
Viewing a playground in this spectral range (thermal wavelengths) provides a new perspective on playgrounds. We can see differences in the microenvironment that will impact users. The microclimates will vary with time (season, time of day) and in a location like London can easily result in conditions that may depart from one of a ‘zone of comfort’ (Figure 2) to one where conditions are too hot or too cold.
From the perspective of sustaining a microclimate suitable for play, we can think about how to locate and design play spaces using our knowledge of microclimate and microclimate processes. The intentional construction of a play area can seek to improve upon existing microclimates – especially those that may already be influenced by constructed landscapes. Figure 3 illustrates the southeast corner of a play area adjacent to a building. The late afternoon sun is warming the building wall. The combination of the warm building wall and dry, warm wood chipped play area, bordered by the warm sidewalk helps to create a thermally comfortable microclimate at this time of day in the late spring when air temperatures remain relatively cool as the heat received from the warm surfaces helps us feel more thermally comfortable. In summer, however, the area is likely to become thermally uncomfortable as both surface and air temperatures increase. The provision of a shade structure provides a microclimate design response – shade from a gazebo visible in the foreground of Figure 3 will help provide a thermally comfortable microclimate in a different part of the play area for the summer season.
Figure 3. Thermal image of a play area at the London Bridge Huron Heights captured at 15:13 local time April 19, 2023 under sunny conditions looking towards the southeast. Cooler temperatures in the foreground are associated with the shadow cast by a gazebo that is just out of view to the right of the image.
At still smaller scales, Figure 1 shows very hot surfaces that are part of the slide play structure. This arises in part because the surface is oriented towards the south, at an angle such that the receipt of mid-day to early afternoon sun will be maximized. In combination with the choice of slide colour, which helps determine the absorption of the solar radiation received, the slide becomes very hot – so hot that it could become hazardous to a user during summer. Choosing to orient the slide towards the north would provide a more favourable summertime surface temperature of the slide by reducing the direct exposure to solar radiation. Choosing a lighter slide colour would also help control maximum surface temperatures.
Design decisions related to playgrounds can help sustain their use over a broader range of environmental conditions. Sustainability in this context relates to our knowledge of environmental processes that govern climate and thermal comfort and choosing playground siting and design that provide a sustainable environment suitable for play. These environments also have broader benefits in terms of developing healthy lifestyles and an appreciation of our environment.
Considering the microclimate variations in a play area can help us consider the broader scale implications of the potential for microclimates to contribute to sustainability. Play areas are but one of many designed areas for humans. How do we design our buildings, our neighbourhoods and cities to consider microclimates? A better appreciation of the microclimates of these areas can help with broader sustainability concerns that include minimizing our impact on the environment and helping make these areas more resilient to environmental changes that have already taken place.
Recognition of microclimates within playgrounds also provides an opportunity for thinking about sustainability from an early age. How do users of the play area take advantage of the microclimate differences? Do they recognize these differences? If users recognize that design of their play area impacts climates at small scales, perhaps this can help them to consider the link between our impacts on the environment at larger scales and to support the use of our existing knowledge for development.
Climate conditions are an important element of a sustainable environment. Our small scale examination of the microclimate of a play area through the medium of thermal imagery provides a particular lens through which to consider sustainability and impacts on climate that arise from human development.
“A Cool Place to Play” by Jessica Irene Joyce (she/her)
Artist & MFA Candidate, Department of Visual Arts, Western University
From the artist: “A Cool Place to Play” is inspired by conversations I had with co-researchers and, more specifically, by the thermal imaging produced by James Voogt during our time at Huron Heights. I wanted to conceptualize a space that would be shaded during the warmer months and provide shelter from the wind during the colder ones. Influenced by the Austrian visual artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the roof of the playground is planted with native species to absorb heat and provide nourishment for local creatures. The roof extends onto the school building as well, visually and conceptually connecting the spaces for learning and playing. My version of a playground for very young children includes spaces for energetic, highly social types as well as more secluded spots for the quieter ones. One may notice the miniature gardens installed in the highest shelves on the walls, so that educators may tend to them while children observe. Importantly, my illustration emphasizes a comfortable ratio of adults to children in this playground. My version of sustainability hinges on community, and strong communities are built through healthy working conditions and solidarity between parents and educators. Recently, there have been calls to action for shorter work weeks, so in my version of a sustainable playground, parents are available to help supervise (and participate in) playtime more often.
A Soapbox for The Forest.
Malvika Agarwal, a contemporary artist and an early childhood scholar, creates an interactive soapbox that includes 2 sonic audioscapes. One from a little forest beloved by the children, educators and families of St. Johns Childcare, and the second audio is from a storm drain that runs off into a nearby lake feature adopted by the childcare.
This virtual soapbox offers an intervention to slow down and examine what we are sustaining through sustainability. Let the sounds inturrupt you and question if sustainbility has become synonymous with progress and development. Is there any space left for anything else to live and thrive in such worlds?
Evolving our Playgrounds as a Journey Backwards in Time
Kathy Harris, RECE, Pedagogical Leader, London Bridge-Huron Heights
I have had an intimate knowledge of children’s playgrounds for 27 years. Throughout this time the playgrounds have been similar; a constructed, contained plot of land, in an urban setting.
Over these 27 years my thinking with the playground space has evolved. In my early years of being an Educator our yard was a piece of turf on an asphalt parking lot, with a canopy for shade. The small chain linked fenced yard was filled with indoor and outdoor toys. The benefits of the outdoors in this space communicated simply that only fresh air was important. For the most part everything that could be seen, touched, mouthed and heard was human made. Insects were seen as pests that could sting and were killed with traps or at the very least considered dirty and “yucky”.
Over time I saw the playgrounds offer contained gardens, sand boxes and pieces of equipment for children to climb. The idea of “bringing the outdoors in” became more prevalent and we would see branches and pinecones brought inside for children to explore in climate-controlled environments. Outdoor creatures such as tadpoles, worms or ants were brought inside to study.
Our practices evolved further towards bringing fewer toys outside while still bringing nature in. This spoke to the idea of the playground toys almost contaminating the children’s outdoor space and outdoor experience. Natural items are now brought in only when it will do no harm. Only branches and leaves that the tree discards are picked up, creatures are no longer brought inside as we have the understanding that they are not ours to take. However, as I write this, I think of the ecosystems we disrupt when we collect the leaves and branches from the ground.
As I lingered in the preschool yard, I knew I had never spent this much time in the space without the children present. It caused me to notice…
built container gardens for flowers.
children in ‘safe’ manicured spaces.
I am reminded of the places where I played as a child with thistles, burrs, uneven terrain, and rotting fruit on the ground under trees that called to bees. These are my favourite childhood memories. I see the irony in our playgrounds evolving into spaces that better reflect the partnership and collaboration with the earth we strive for. While I say our practices have evolved will this evolutionary path take us back what spaces looked like before playgrounds existed? Where we were simply present with nature? The irony of our practices evolving back more primitive times is not lost on me.
Above, contribution by Hazeema, 3rd Year Bachelor of Medical Sciences Student, UWO
Playing for Keeps
— Kiera Taylor (she/her), undergraduate student, Ivey HBA & Climate Change and Society combined degree, Western University
A playground replete with plastic fixtures,
Jarring colours clash, a customary sight for youthful mixtures.
Unused structures gather dust, once the centerpiece of the place,
Now new toys entice with their synthetic grace.
Fake turf lies underfoot, what the kids now know of grass,
Nature is replaced, but at what cost and how long will this last?
A wooden structure stands alone in the corner,
A forgotten relic, with memories to ponder.
“Manipulate this toy through action X, but abstain from Y”
Manufacturers dictate what it means to enjoy,
Imparting consumerism from an early age,
Capitalistic ideals during the tender juvenile stage.
When a train goes by, the children run to the fence,
Captivated by the sound, a natural suspense.
Though the pinnacle of delight is attained with cumulation of winter’s snow,
Is surmounted with glee, in an untrammeled show.
We must instill in our children a reverence for,
Our planet and its creatures, its fragile rapport.
A playground that’s sustainable and planet-friendly,
Where nature and play intertwine in endless synergy.
Where hands touch dirt, grass, and stones,
Imagination and creativity are rekindled, leave them not alone.
Let’s give them the chalk, let their visions elate,
With boundless creation, what playground will they create?
One with wooden swings and climbing walls,
Where trees and grass grow tall,
Children would connect with earth and sky,
A playground where they learn to care and not just comply.
Let’s build a playground that’s designed with care,
Using materials that are healthy and fair,
A place where nature is allowed to thrive,
And where the environment is kept alive
Where we can all come together to care for our earth,
And create a playground that celebrates its natural worth.
Priscilla Gatley, RECE, Pedagogist, London Bridge:
“My submission for this project is a digital artwork I created on top of spliced images of the natural elements combining / overtaking manmade items in play space. In partnership with this piece, I have written a poem titled Convergence, which summarizes in one word what stood out most to me from this playground experience”
Convergence
Once an open field, now I stand,
A playground built on this patch of land,
Children’s laughter, swings and slides,
A man-made world, within nature’s tides.
Trees surround me, their leaves a shade,
A peaceful haven, where kids can play,
But cars and buildings, they loom nearby,
The convergence of two worlds, they can’t deny.
Yet here they come, day after day,
To run and jump and shout and play,
A balance found, in this small space,
Man-made and nature, in an embrace.
So I’ll stand here, a playground proud,
With grass and dirt and concrete ground,
A place where children can freely roam,
A harmony struck, in their playful home.
Dr. Alina Shchepetkina, Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Western University:
To me, this interdisciplinary project is about how Earth’s climate keeps changing and how our time (represented by a snapshot of a playground) will be preserved in the rock record. As geologists, we think in dimensions of time, sediments, and depositional systems. I also added a sea-level curve to represent the likely scenario what the London area will become in 10,000-20,000 years from now if the temperatures and sea-level keep rising.
A-ban-don
give up completely(a course of action, a practice or a way of being)
In order to sustain something, what are the things that we need to abandon?
The old faded water/sensory table with missing parts reminded me of an abandoned theme park.
Notes on the margins:
SOAPBOX
I am thrilled at how the word “soapbox” connects us to the colonial England but also to figures as diverse as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and George Orwell and to the thousands (!) of people who were hanged at Hyde Park: “Everyone condemned to die at Tyburn could make a final speech. Some confessed; others protested their innocence or criticised the authorities. For onlookers, executions at Tyburn were big social events” (source)
“George Orwell wrote about the gatherings that took place at a particularly iconic area of Hyde Park. “I have listened there to Indian nationalists,” he said, “temperance reformers, communists … freethinkers, vegetarians, Mormons, the Salvation Army … and a large variety of plain lunatics, all taking their turn at the rostrum in an orderly way and receiving a fairly good-humoured hearing from the crowd.” (source; photos above: Philip Wolmuth, Speakers Corner)
From Wikipedia: The term is also used metaphorically to describe a person engaging in often flamboyant, impromptu, or unofficial public speaking, as in the phrase, “Get off your soapbox.” Hyde Park in London is known for its Sunday soapbox orators, who have assembled at its Speakers’ Corner since 1872 to discuss religion, politics, and other topics. Blogs can be used as soapboxes within the context of the World Wide Web, and are often used for promotional purposes.
– Tatiana Zakharova-Goodman
Zuhayr Khan, undergraduate student, Health Sciences, Western University:
10 Things We Can Do
- Establishing community gardens adjacent to or within the playground, allowing children and adults to learn about gardening, food production, and the importance of organic and sustainable agriculture.
- Creating designated areas within the playground for composting and recycling, promoting waste reduction and teaching children about the importance of environmental stewardship.
- Collaborating with local indigenous communities to incorporate cultural elements and traditional knowledge into the playground design, fostering a deeper connection to the land and promoting reconciliation.
- Hosting storytelling sessions and gatherings at the playground, where indigenous elders and knowledge keepers share stories about the land, local history, and sustainable practices.
- Partnering with local environmental organizations to conduct guided nature walks, bird-watching sessions, or nature-themed art workshops in and around the playground.
- Integrating natural elements such as rocks, logs, and water features into the playground design, providing opportunities for sensory exploration and connection with the natural world.
- Creating designated quiet spaces within the playground, where children and adults can engage in mindfulness activities, meditation, or simply find solace in nature.
- Encouraging the use of environmentally-friendly materials in playground construction, opting for recycled or sustainable materials whenever possible.
- Establishing a network of interconnected playgrounds and green spaces within a community, forming green corridors that support wildlife movement and promote biodiversity.
- Organizing community clean-up events to maintain the cleanliness and ecological integrity of the playground and its surrounding areas.
Thinking together
on/with/in playgrounds
Playgrounds as sites of
collaborative work
Sustaining playgrounds
as places of being together
but, children are our future
Kayla Paquette, Educator, London Bridge
Throughout this research, my mind kept referring to the societal statement “I believe the children are our future.” However, if we recognize children as our future, what responsibilities do adults hold to provide children with a sustainable future? Are children responsible to save the world we disrupted?
Nana Presto, Educator
London Bridge
In the circularity of the thinking and the interdisciplinary of the thoughts,
the subjects sustain the talk.
We circle the thinking, we “interdiscipline” the thoughts, we subject the meanings.
Maintaining the flow of getting closer and stepping away.
Retaining and noticing details from different perspectives.
Sustaining reconnect and reimagine.
Over time, what has been sustained, maintained, and/or retained?
Our interactions with natural elements provoke a variety of dialogues: the warm and dry surface in our hands transforms into gentle cold and damp … something is being generated from the destruction … human actions interact …noticing the desire to return to the beginning…to reestablish
This started as an idea looking at sustainability and how to mimic the circle of life with creation leading to degradation. However, as the thought mulled and through listening to more conversation, both in the group, online and around, an observation was made about the area in which the school, Adelaide Early Childhood Learning Centre, was located. It was mainly about the industrial feel of the area and how that, in part, wormed it’s way into the school’s policies and care of the children. But if one moves further away from the area, you still find that most spaces do not cater or lend a space for children, talk less of “play” in their surroundings. A tweet I saw in a binge scroll mentioned that their child noticed that there are no potties children size, in almost all public bathrooms. And more comments like that kept showing up in the sense, forming the opinion, that the world itself, isn’t really considering kids to begin with. Even “play”, as we see it, is more of a tool to raise children with a sole purpose of being productive members of society, and productive here means paying members of society. We see it with toys that cater towards jobs and careers, throwing these young minds already into the production line of workers. Meanwhile, playing, in itself, is the space where one finds themselves in a state of being. If lessons are learned, it is an added benefit, not be the main purpose. Where it is just an activity that lets one run free, one gets creative and within that activity there is allowance for emotions to be expressed. This expression, in the end, leads to the sense of ownership to what the body wants, mind wants, way of movement and that is the end of that purpose. It’s just to be.
With that, I made two wire sculptures of kids, one playing hopscotch, the other playing a video game, using steel to represent industrialization and copper to represent conductivity. I used the seeds of the maple tree as wings to tie in the natural spontaneity of playing with what is around you as this added element came because I was setting the stage for this photoshoot outside. With the child playing hopscotch, reaching the top where “Worker” is written instead of 10, highlights my thoughts on kids being on the production line to “Work” or be deemed valuable according to the context of the society they are in. The copper child’s wings are down as “play” is now this portable device where the many other worlds can simultaneously exist except it sucks you away from the one you are living in presently now.
Amsa Yaro,
Artist
what are we sustaining?
Jacqueline Demendeev is an artist with the heart of a storyteller. Working primarily as a painter and cartoonist, she takes inspiration from storybook illustration, surrealist imagery, and her own cultural heritage.
by Brenda Grigg,
Educator,
London Bridge
The playground I grew up in / No need for rubber or tin / Durable as can be / Just me, the water, and the trees
Jai Karim Chagani, Undergraduate Student, Real Estate, Western University
In the Courtyard: Thoughts on Permanence
Flowers
follow the cycle of life: sprout, blossom, flourish, wither, decay. They are not permanent. So we fabricate one from metal and a large one for that. It is the size of the flower with the world’s largest bloom, Rafflesia arnoldii, also known as the “corpse flower” for its unpleasant odour of rotten flesh. It can grow to be 3 feet across and weigh up to 15 pounds. This metal mimicry of a flower attached to the fence likely weighs just as much. Bot no odour. We don’t want to smell “corpses.”
This artificial flower is a static object. It is meant to permanently radiate a bright red colour year round that we will particularly notice during the long, cold, grey winter months. The garden hose has no role in keeping it in existence. It is a flower that does not need maintenance. Or we thought so. The metal flower doesn’t escape the attention of water, not from the hose, but from the sky. Year after year, rain poured over the flower, and the metal responded to the combined effect of air and water. Oxidization, erosion and rust formation changed its surface and colour. Surprisingly, the metal now mimics the colour and texture of the climbing vine creeping up the fence. Metal – to keep its material properties in- tact, has different needs from a living plant; what nurtures a blooming flower, erodes the one made of metal. But why is this desire for permanence, mimicking nature with an artificial object assuming its longevity?
Hannah Arendt
introduced the concept of vita activa in her seminal book, The Human Condition.
For Hannah Arendt, vita activa comprises three fundamental human activities: labour, work, and action. “They are fundamental because each corresponds to one of the basic conditions under which life on earth has been given to man.” Labour is comprised of all the activity that is necessary to maintain life. According to Arendt, “its human condition is life itself.” It corresponds to the biological processes, growth and eventual decay; it is perpetual within the cycle of life and death. Labour does not produce anything permanent as its efforts are quickly consumed, thus it must be constantly performed and renewed. This life-maintaining labour is also loosely gendered as household chores, and caring for children, the elderly and the sick are performed within the domain of women’s labour.
Work, on the other hand, “is the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence, which is not imbedded in, and whose mortality is not compensated by, the species’ ever recurring life cycle.”[1] Work is world-making, it has a beginning and an end, and its result is a man-made thing. The human condition of work is worldliness.[2] Each individual life plays out within the borders of this man-made “artificial” world but “this world [is] meant to outlast and transcend them all.”[3] The characteristics of a world built through work are stability, durability, semi-permanence, and relative independence from the actors who built it. Arendt also points out the transformative power of work, that work is distinctively human as it does not conform to the demands of nature. On the contrary, it transforms nature. Humanity in this mode of activity is homo faber who creates things, institutions and spaces. As work is ultimately governed by human ends and intentions, it is under human control and as such it entails a certain level of freedom.
When I think of how Arendt positions labour and work in relation to each other I sense a hierarchical structure. Labour is the lowest level of human activity that lacks freedom as it is a necessity dictated by the natural cycles of life that must be performed endlessly. But work is creative, produces things that are permanent, or long-lasting, and it is a testament to the human species’ superiority over nature. But where did this world-making lead us?
The tallest buildings and other man-made megastructures are suspected to trigger earthquakes because of the stress that they exert on the ground beneath them. There’s a floating garbage dump orbiting Earth with more than 100 trillion untracked pieces of dangerous space junk (human-made debris left in orbit around Earth). On Earth, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (also known as the Pacific trash vortex) contains about 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic that weigh an estimated 80,000 tonnes. Our ways of life, consumption and reckless extraction of the Earth’s natural resources led to an accelerating climate change. We became vulnerable by focusing on world-making and ignoring sustaining and maintaining the cycles of all life.
But what if we reorient our gaze from world-making to sustaining life?
What if we don’t hold up man’s creation and aspiration for permanence, situated in linear time, as our ultimate ideal but refocus on the domain of women’s labour: sustaining cycles of life, from birth to death, from the morning to the night, from one generation to the next, from one season to another, always attuned to the interdependent lifecycles of the myriad of species and organisms on the planet? And what if we put this labour to the centre of political discourse, to set something into motion, and take action (the highest form of human activity in vita activa)?
[1] Hanna Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), 7
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
Sustain (verb):
Maintain, continue, keep up, prolong, keep going, keep alive, protract
(Collins Dictionary)
An immensely long garden hose
in bright green colour catches my attention first as I enter the courtyard. Unlikely to be used these days as spring barely arrived, which brought storms and rain. Next to the garden hose, a white downspout channels rainwater runoff when needed to prevent garden erosion and foundation damage to the building. The small courtyard, surrounded by high walls on two sides and a fence on the third, is likely shaded most of the time. But I can imagine the garden hose being put to good use in hot summers. Ten pairs of feet moving small children’s bodies, crisscrossing and stomping on the ground, have their effect on compacting the soil. Water might have a hard time reaching the roots of plants. But I also imagine the hose nurtures children’s bodies too, sprinkling cooling vapour on their skin beyond watering the soil.
Above,
collage by Carrie Snook, Director of Operations, London Bridge Child Care Services
What is worth balancing?
Charlotte Prince
RECE Pedagogical Leader
London Bridge
Sustaining Playground Development: Two decades later: what have we sustained?
In 2003 a team of educators, my mother included, developed a proposal to recreate the outdoor playground. What have we sustained? How has our thinking changed?
Train Station : The Gazebo
Families of educators, my grandfather included, built the train station. Then a place for children to watch the trains passing on the nearby track. Their work still standing today, now called a gazebo. The new fencing to the side highlights the age and weather of the train station. The space unchanged for two decades, the way it is used shifting with our own knowledge of education. What was once a specific space for the purpose of watching trains, is now an open place to play with a variety of uses. In years past the trees were cut back to have a clear view of the train tracks. These have been untouched for several years and the trees rebel from their past; growing fiercely, covering the once open view.
Without a shift in thinking the impacts of sustainability is profound. We sustain relations; in space, ways of being, and with beings; both positive and negative. 20 years later, how are we shifting our thinking?
What are we wanting to sustain?
Herb Garden : Astroturf
What was once planned as an herb garden is now astroturf. A Rose of Sharon tree planted, in the middle of the plastic, in memory of a beloved educator. The weeds escaping through, trying to reach the sunlight above. Was an herb garden ever made? Did we destroy it? Did the herbs live and die their natural course? The plastic is sustainable but what does it offer?
Sandbox cover : Sandbox cover
Originally the educators had hoped for vines growing across the roof. Reading their proposal 20 years later, you would hope for luscious greenery that had been tended to and offered shade to many children through this time. The current barren cover tells a different story. The space remains and we continue to sustain unwritten rules on how to be in this particular space. Children play in this space, the sand stays within the wooden barrier and the barren wood remains over the sand box.
Andrés Garzon Espitia
Weathering Change (1-4)
8.5 x 5.5 in,
Oil pastel on watercolour paper
2023
Edition of 4
Artist: Andrés Garzon Espitia
Andrés Garzon Espitia writes:
I created 4 drawings titled “Weathering Change (1-4)”, inspired by man-made items found onsite: a large metal decorative flower, and a wooden bead installation made by the kids. Despite this space’s ability to evade becoming many things throughout the years, I realized the only influence it wasn’t able to avoid was weather and time. These items showed the true power of environment; the decaying metal, the bleached beads, both once brilliant in colour. I decided to re-imagine these items in their glory days, in hopes that they may one day inspire new life in the space.
Amanda Seabrook, PhD student, Faculty of Education, UWO:
Points of
Tension
Points of Tension Between Space, Place, and Land: Orienting Ourselves with the Land
by Hailey Rockandel, undergraduate student, Western University
Humans have long succumbed to the dangerous belief that we are separate from our surrounding environment. We put our species on a pedestal, suggesting that human life sits above the creatures and land that orient us. In doing so, we fall victim to “education’s most fundamental binary – the ‘subject/object’ divide” (1).
“The world had always been the object of study, and humans had always been the knowing subject, learning about this exteriorised world” (1).
In an ever-intensifying climate crisis, we can no longer afford to view ourselves as rulers distanced from the land. The geological epoch in which we live, the Anthropocene, is evidence of the disastrous impact humans have imposed on the planet. Land used to exist on par with humans before we started treating it as a resource to serve our needs. To reframe our relationship with the land, it is important to consider the knowledge of Indigenous ways of living.
Indigenous pedagogy is heavily centered around the Land and reciprocity (2). Dr. Amy Parent, Nisga’a from the Nass Valley of Northwestern British Columbia and Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, says that “Indigenous Land-based education … is a process that centres respect, reciprocity, reverence, humility and responsibility as values connected to the Land through Indigenous knowledges” (2). Simply put, “it teaches us that Land is not a resource. Rather, she is a dearly beloved, revered relative who is in crisis right now” (2). Unlike Euro-Western paradigmatic thinking, Indigenous ontologies recognize that human life co-exists within a pluriverse. We are part of a greater whole, intricately connected to the fate of every living being. “There is much to be learned from Land-based Indigenous relational ontologies, not the least because indigenous ways of knowing and being in reciprocal relationship with the Land and all its creatures provide an ancient blueprint for sustainable living” (1). By understanding the principle of coexistence, we can cultivate a reverence for the land, acknowledging that our well-being thrives in harmony with nature.
Humanity’s pursuit of progress has come at a great cost to the environment. The Global North, in particular, sustains an inescapable culture of consumption, binding citizens to the dogged desire for more. By 2030, it is predicted that “those in the global south who had the smallest ecological footprint and were the least responsible for precipitating the accelerating ecological crises were tragically the most adversely affected by them” (1). In education, a similar tension arises between accountability and responsibility. Our generation is both the culprit and witness to the consequences of our actions that have wreaked havoc on the environment. Yet, it will be our children and grandchildren who shoulder the responsibility of mending the ecosystems we have damaged. How can we live peacefully knowing the next generation will inherit the task of cleaning up the mess we have created? How can we educate the next generation of global citizens to forge a sustainable future when we are leaving them in a state of climate crisis?
Orienting ourselves with the land is no simple task. We must begin by understanding our place as ecological beings within a broader ecosystem that gives rise to life beyond the human entity. “It is time for learning to become with the world in which we are already inextricably entangled and embedded and to which we will be always mortally indebted” (1).
References
1. “Learn to Become With the World: Education for Future Survival.” UNESCO, 2020. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374032
2. “Land as Teacher: Understanding Indigenous Land-Based Education.” Canadian Commission UNESCO, 2021. https://en.ccunesco.ca/idealab/indigenous-land-based-education
Junyu Ke, PhD candidate, Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, Collaborative Specialization in Environment and Sustainability, University of Western Ontario
Thoughts on the playground project
1.
The conversations at the Centre were thought-provoking. While listening to others, I could not help thinking about this idea of safety in this child-care setting. The playground at the Centre is first and foremost a safe and protected environment. Children are free to yield their willingness as far as they are in the confine of safety. There is nothing strange about this in an organizational setting as in other institutions, as there are rules, agreements, customs, and expectations, jointly made and followed by parents, educators, the board and other stakeholders and/or service providers. However, tackling the environmental issues radically does require some transgressions of the set customs and rules for transformation (of our business-as-usual-model). Safety and stability are human-made concepts, an illusion of the human world. There is no guaranteed safety and unchangeableness in nature, but the children, upon submitting themselves to institutions, may hardly have the chance to recognize this. However, carrying along their trajectory of growth in the next decades, likely, is the stability of the notion of “nature” being challenged from time to time by the increasingly destabilizing environmental conditions.
2.
If we are to stop enacting the Nature/Culture dichotomy through our environmental education underpinned by the anthropocentric concepts like stability, we may start with Latour (2017)’s proposal about using the term “world”, or “worlding”, as opposed to using the concept of “nature” embedded in Nature/Culture. The term “world” is a more open concept that embraces the multiplicity of existents and the multiplicity of ways of existing, and multiple ways of connection among existents. To accept the term “world” in place of “nature”, according to Latour, is to reject the submission of all existents into a particular way of existence, for Nature/Culture is identified as “one particular arrangement the choice of existents and their ways of connecting” (p.36). As a result of the worlding orientation and practice, the collective understanding engaging the distinctions of nature and culture is reoriented “toward the multiplicity of the world” (ibid.) and the boundary drawn by humans with the non-human domain is dissolved in face of the richness and complexity of co-existing beings.
3.
The second proposal Latour makes is to identify ourselves as Earthbound rather than Human. Earthbound defines our relation to the world differently from Human does. Bearing the same vision of Worlding, the idea of Earthbound is to place human beings in a mutually entangled network of lives (agents). Contrast to this idea, Human is described as “seem to remain indifferent to the consequences of their actions” (p.251) due to a lack of localizing themselves in the material world, while the Earthbound is “sensitive and responsive” in co-existence with other agents (ibid.). The Earthbound perspective will offer a teaching on extending the human subjectivity over the external world and staying open to the vast diversity of existents and their ways of existing and relating to each other. Climate change is not just a consequence, but also an intrusive force against the operative social order upon which humans have been arrogating subjectivity and agency to themselves. The notion of “nature” legitimating this grounding can no longer be sustained for humans to safely reside in a non-affected zone. Only if we remove ourselves from the Anthropocentric position could we start to look at humans and the world through an undistorted lens. In the end, we need a broadened concept of care that calls for openness and humbleness as a source of treatment. – Junyu Ke
Cited work: Latour, Bruno. 2017. Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime.
Images by T.Zakharova-Goodman
Karla Fonseca, RECE
It is the relationship of spirituality and physicality that has me questioning our human existence.
Me – the human living in this land and taking away from the blueprint of this planet, its values that hold strong under demanding conditions.
I want to belong to a system which wealth means having enough to share, and where the gratification of meeting your family needs is not poisoned by destroying that possibility for someone else. I want children to play in a space where the thinking of both children and adults is an exchange of gratitude, kindness and respect to the multiple resources of our planet. Empowering our children to be thinkers of a sustainable community and seeing concepts of sharing as currency.
Karla Fonseca is an RECE and Pedagogical Leader with London Bridge.
I feel honoured to be asked my opinion on the sustainability of playgrounds. As a mother
of 4 I understand the importance of play, even for adults. What might solutions look like that
serve the planet and its inhabitants? Are there ways to give back to the earth while stimulating
children and additionally offering a creative outlet for their adult caregivers? Can a playground
offer the possibility of play and creativity for all ages? If we are not asking ourselves these
important questions, how can we expect the next generation to honour the earth and choose
sustainable options when the time comes in their lives?
As the owner of a business with a mission to reduce waste, my mind naturally wanders
to the ways in which we can offer experiences in a manner that is fun, educational, sustainable
and leaves the earth better than we found it. Knowing that garbage is a challenge for schools
and childcare centres, I wondered about collecting inorganic trash to be made into eco-bricks.
The students could collect their trash after lunch and stuff the trash into plastic bottles destined
for the blue bin. Once the bottles are stuffed with the trash they are now called eco bricks.
These bricks serve as not only building materials, but also a reminder to the children that the
garbage they produce does not go away. While placing a wrapper in the bin after eating a snack
may appear to them as “gone away”, we know that said wrapper will never truly be gone. What
an excellent way to remind the children each time they go outside of the permanence of their
waste. The wrapper from that granola bar they ate last November will still be on the playground
in the form of an eco brick next September.
Once eco bricks are made there are many applications for them, and the kids could
decide how to best use them in their playground. You can make chairs out of them, build
retaining walls for gardens, create a part wall to offer a sun shade or a backdrop for climbing
vines to grow. The important piece is that the waste products are visible inside the bottles,
acting as a reminder of their inability to disappear. Below are some examples of various eco
brick projects that may be suitable to be used in the playground.
by Kara Rijnen
Balancing life with four kids and running a community hub and package-free grocery store in downtown London, Ontario, Kara Rijnen is the co-owner of Reimagine Co, whose food sustained us during one of the intensives.
RECE, AECEO.C, Director of Pedagogy, London Bridge
Rachel Miner is a violist and a performer; and a student at Western University. She created a series of three collages comprised of photos taken during the intensives, Chinese brush paintings she made, and a collection of haikus she wrote.
Melanie Stone, Accessibility and
Inclusion Advisor for the City of London:
I grow a little weary of the battle between accessibility and environment. These are not movements in opposition. However, they are too often pitted against each other in odd ways, in NIMBY ways.
One of my first forays into this ugly mess was in a public meeting about a new pathway built in London.
This path provided the first chance residents of a supported living building had to move their bodies down to the river. It would provide a new walking site, more access to nature, and a chance to see the river.
The crowd that night protested loudly. They claimed the new wooden path would kill the hog nosed snakes, bring litter to the path, and cause destruction of the forest and bring crime. They protested when a gentleman with a disability spoke to thank City staff for including people with disabilities in their outreach.
Ignored in this outcry was compromise, the report of our ecologist, any interest in accommodation or inclusion. The cry of sustainability has long been tied to that of non-compromise and certainly non-inclusion. This is a decidedly uncreative way to look at change.
We need sustainable playgrounds and play spaces. We also need these spaces to be inclusive and to teach inclusion and care for one another and the earth. I’ve created a small collage to encourage a new play space that does both.
For a little play space, we can look at planting tall grasses that are hardy, and which draw out moisture from deep in the soil. The children can help to develop little play spaces for the senses.
I suggest the garden be a place to think about our bodies and our senses and how they move. What do our bodies need and what do we need to do to help others and the earth?
Interactive sensory objects are encouraged. Watching and listening is encouraged. Helping one another is encouraged. Quiet untouched spaces should exist along more structured paths for those who have trouble with walking. Striking a balance is key.
Access is not the enemy of sustainable space. This little space can encourage creative thought and inclusion.
Return to the Earth: a Homecoming
Watercolour on paper piece by Amanda Fairbairn, early childhood educator, London Bridge
Amanda explains:
In the forest, my attention was drawn to signs of decay and decomposition, especially the fallen leaves on the forest floor. They looked fragile and almost glass-like, so thin and translucent that you could see what was lying beneath them. I took lots of photographs that day, but it was these leaves that I couldn’t stop thinking about. I began to think about ideas of life cycles, death, rebirth, and reincarnation – specifically around the leaves decomposing and returning to the soil from which they came in order to enrich the next generation of growth.
My goal was to create my own paints/inks with found materials from the forest. I collected leaves, sticks, mud, bark, and other materials that were on the forest floor. At home, I placed these items in sealed jars with water, in the hopes that they would pigment the water. After 2 weeks, I put the materials in a blender and squeezed the pulp through cheesecloth to extract any colour.
The result was… a watery mess that imparted no pigment when I applied the mixtures to paper. The worst part, however, was the smell! Even if I had created usable colours, I wouldn’t have been able to paint with them because it smelled so rotten and overpowering.
I felt defeated, and disappointed that I wasted the materials the forest had given to me. It felt like in an attempt to recycle materials from the natural, more-than-human world, I ended up feeding into the very human world of consumerism; I bought cheaply made tools to use in my experimenting that were imported from across the world (causing harmful emissions), prone to break and then end up in a landfill for years to come.
I sat with these feelings of failure. Gradually, I began to see that there was another side to everything. I didn’t create what I set out to do (make paint), but there was still transformation happening. The scents, colours, textures, and feelings that resulted were different than before my actions touched these materials. As humans, we are creators.
I still needed to create a contribution for the project, so I returned to my original inspiration – the photos of the translucent leaves. This time, I used conventional pan watercolours and a water brush, a new tool for me that was quite fun to play with. I applied colour to the paper in thin washes, building layers over time. Then, I left droplets and small puddles on the paper to soak in and push the paint away from beneath them. Sometimes I tilted the paper to let the water run and cover more area. It left organic, interesting shapes that, to me, echo the layers of leaves built up on the forest floor.
Inclusive of the playground
Landuo Wei, undergraduate student, Media, Information & Technoculture, Western University
What’s your memory of your childhood playground? A place where you can hang out with friends, a place with toys that allows you to build your first “house”, a place with swings and slides that let you experience the excitement. Can you imagine yourself seeing all the toys, facilities and other peers in the playground but can not be part of it?
of water conservation and reuse
Mita Ray, Professor, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, UWO
Water is at the core of the sustainable development and strongly connected to food, energy production, and overall quality of life. Conservation of dwindling water resources and water recycling are two key concepts to achieve water sustainability. Rainwater is free and making use of it at the time of high demand is a great way to conserve resources. Rainwater harvesting is becoming more common in many parts of Canada and in many water-starved regions of the world. The diagram 1 (left) shows the different ways that collected rainwater can be used.
Children can be taught the value of water conservation and recycling of water in many forms from early childhood. The common use of rainwater without any extensive treatment is irrigation of gardens and landscape plants. It is suggested that the child care center makes a provision for watering a small flower bed adjacent to the playground for late spring and summer when outdoor activities are more prevalent. The water collection system can be very simple as shown in figure 2, below. The easiest and cheapest way is to install barrels of water tanks below the downspout of a rooftop guttering system, and water is funneled or directed into the tanks. Filters can be installed just below the downspout in order to remove turbidity, color, and microorganisms. The filter can be made of gravel, sand and netlon mesh flier and be placed on top of the storage tank. The filter media should be cleaned when the flow through the filter is reduced.
