ABSTRACT
This chapter examining the power and potential of green outdoor environments through a multi-faceted, settings-based health-promotion approach in schools and early childhood education services. It argues that children’s health and wellbeing discourse beyond the ‘physical’. Green outdoor environments can thus be considered and developed as sites to enhance these various dimensions of children’s lives. An emerging and exciting body of literature is exploring the relationship between outdoor learning environments and health promotion, particularly from a holistic health perspective. Green outdoor environments can affect all dimensions of children’s health, and when thoughtfully designed can become an integral component of holistic settings-based approaches to promoting health in schools and early childhood education settings. Green outdoor environments can result in many physical health benefits for young children, some of which are relatively straightforward. Conventional outdoor environments, by their design, provide a limited range of play opportunities that privilege certain individuals.
