Adventure Playground at the Parish School

Adventure Play at the Parish School is an adventure playground located in Houston, Texas.[1] The Adventure Playground at the Parish School consists of a three-acre play area open to children from 6 to 12 years old. It is one of the few junk playgrounds located in the United States, and the only one located in a school.[2][3] The playground serves children with communication disorders and language and learning differences, often including difficulties interacting with peers.[4][5][note 1]

Adventure Play at the Parish School
Adventure Play at The Parish School
TypeAdventure playground
LocationThe Parish School, 11001 Hammerly Blvd., Houston, TX 77043
Nearest cityHouston, TX
Coordinates29.8114°N 95.5720°W / 29.8114; -95.5720
Area3 acre
OpenTo the public
Monday-Thursday from 3:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WebsiteOfficial website

Adventure playground

The adventure playground at the Parish School was started in 2008 with a sand-pile and two cement culverts.[5] The three-acre play-area now contains a zip-line, shade structures, and an expanse of grassy floodplain, with natural features (dirt, grass, sticks), wildlife, and various scavenged construction materials, other recyclables, lumber, pipes, fabric and rope.[4][6][7] Children also have access to tools (hammers and nails, hand drills and saws, shovels and post-hole diggers) for building structures out of recycled building materials.[8][5] Many of these materials are collected from the Building Materials Reuse Warehouse, a part of the City of Houston's Solid Waste Management Department.[9]

The idea is that children can create whatever they want on the adventure playground. It's a child-directed environment.
— Jill Wood, Director of Adventure Play at The Parish School, PlayGroundology & Houston MediaSource [10]

The Adventure Playground at the Parish School is staffed by playworkers.[11]

Research site

The Adventure Playground at the Parish School has been the site of several academic studies. These have concerned landscape design[4] and comparisons of injury rates between conventional adult-designed-and-built playgrounds and child-designed-and-built junk playgrounds, or risky playgrounds.[12] For example, comparing injury rates between two playground types, Wood and Leichter-Saxby (2016) found that the location with the fewest incidents was the child-built adventure playground.[12] In a statistical study of risky play at the Parish School, which compared injury rates there to other activities, Leichter-Saxby and Wood (2018) found that play on the school's adventure playground was slightly riskier than snooker and safer than table tennis.[13] Playing on conventional fixed equipment at school recess was riskier than golf, but safer than being at home. Adventure play was safer than play on conventional playground equipment, but each carried an extremely low risk of serious injury.[13]

Notes
  1. The Parish School adventure playground is the only adventure playground in the United States that specifically serves children with communication and learning differences, such as auditory and other sensory processing differences, autism spectrum differences, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, dysgraphia, or childhood apraxia of speech.Wood, Jill (2017). "Playing in the After School Program The Parish School, Houston, TX". In Almon, Joan (ed.). Playing It Up With Loose Parts, Playpods, and Adventure Playgrounds. Alliance for Childhood. pp. 102–108. ISBN 978-1-542-85937-0.

References
  1. "Adventure Playground at the Parish School". kidsoutandabout.com. Kids Out and About. 2016. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  2. Leichter-Saxby, Morgan (2016). "Staff Spotlight" (PDF). Parish Post. Houston, Texas: The Parish School. Retrieved July 8, 2017.
  3. Leichter-Saxby, Morgan (2015). The New Adventure Playground Movement: How Communities across the USA are Returning Risk and Freedom to Childhood. Notebook Publishing. ISBN 9780956553997.
  4. Karen Dawn, Teague (2015). Restraints On Design: Adventure Playgrounds And Landscape Architecture (PDF) (M.A. Thesis). The University of Texas at Arlington. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  5. Wood, Jill (2017). "Playing in the After School Program The Parish School, Houston, TX". In Almon, Joan (ed.). Playing It Up With Loose Parts, Playpods, and Adventure Playgrounds. Alliance for Childhood. pp. 102–108. ISBN 978-1-542-85937-0.
  6. Cote, Alex (2016). "Alex's Playwork Notebook: Playing in the Cracks, USA". earthplay.net. earthplay. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  7. Leichter-Saxby, Morgan (January 5, 2016). "First day (back) at Parish School AP". playeverything.wordpress.com. Play Everything. Retrieved July 8, 2017.
  8. "California Dreamin'". playgroundology.wordpress.com. Playgroundology. September 26, 2016. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  9. "Out in the Community - with Sarah Mason" (PDF). houstontx.gov. City of Houston, Texas. February 25, 2012. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  10. "Tour of The Parish School's Adventure Playground with Jill Wood in Houston, Texas". youtube.com. PlayGroundology & Houston MediaSource. October 1, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  11. "Adventure play at the Parish School". parishschool.org. The Parish School. 2017. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  12. Wood, Jill; Leichter-Saxby, Morgan. Adventures in Risk: Comparing Injury Rates of One Population on Two Different School Playgrounds (PDF). Conference on the Value of Play: Where Design Meets Play, April 2–5, Clemson University. Clemson, South Carolina: US Play Coalition.
  13. Leichter-Saxby, Morgan; Wood, Jill (2018). Comparing Injury Rates on a Fixed Equipment Playground and an Adventure Playground (PDF) (Report). Pop-Up Adventure Play.
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