Abstract:

Over time, children seem to have lost contact with nature and the outdoors. For their parents, playing in the street was a regular occurrence. In urban contexts, due to the professional demands that parents "carry", time tends to be limited. In their busy lives, families must juggle work, daily chores or other responsibilities and still fit in quality time with their children. We know from experience that during the childhood of previous generations, much of the time was spent outdoors with friends, taking risks. Adult supervision was less valued and possibly even less necessary. A childhood enriched with meaningful references promotes the recording of memories that remain etched in the minds of today's adults. Our perception is clear: we need to slow down so that childhood can be a time of exploration, curiosity, and inspiration, because today's children need us to let them be children and experience everything that comes with childhood (Hanscom, 2018). The networked society (Castells, 2002) in which we are integrated, absorbed by the digital world, influences the way we make choices that are often removed from outdoor experiences and contact with nature as in the generations that preceded us. The more sedentary lives of today's adults and children confine them to their homes, always connected to the world in a virtual way, cancelling out the various possibilities of access to movement and risk (Neto, 2020). On the other hand, this scenario means that children don't have the freedom of movement, skinned knees and meaningful learning that are fundamental to a child's harmonious development. In this way, contact with nature from an early age is urgent, as it provides children with an ideal environment for developing motor and sensory maps that lead to efficient spatial perception.

The research "Outdoor learning opportunities: changing practices in urban daycare centres" aims to study the potential/possibilities of urban daycare centres in creating learning opportunities in contact with natural elements outdoors. It was developed using a methodological design with qualitative and quantitative approaches. The intervention implemented in an institution in Matosinhos, Portugal, associated with the broader study, arises from the need to make up for the lack of outdoor space and to give children some contact with nature. The reflection presented in this document describes partial data collected during the diagnostic period of the wider investigation, which is still ongoing. During this period, families of 36 children (nursery to two-year-old) were involved. When collecting information from families, we opted for a simplified questionnaire, using mostly closed questions and images that would allow us to record their perspectives more objectively. This option was related to the fact that we felt we could gather and process data that would have a real impact on the practices to be implemented more quickly and objectively.

Data collected emphasises the importance attributed to access to the outdoors as a driver of balance in the use of technology. We noticed changes between parents' and children's generations in terms of access to the outdoors. Outdoor spaces have changed and so have the opportunities for access. Parents as children used more informal and natural outdoor contexts, such as backyards or the street, while their own children used more formatted outdoor spaces, such as gardens or urban parks.

Keywords:

Play outside, families, development, early childhood education.