Designing Outdoor Environments for Children: Landscaping School Yards, Gardens and Playgrounds - Hardcover

by Lolly Tai (Author), Mary Taylor Haque (Author), Gina K. McLellan (Author)

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Create fun, safe, innovative outdoor landscapes for children

This unique resource expertly details the design, installation, and maintenance of sustainable children's landscapes and play yards. Numerous case studies cover projects including storybook courtyards, music and barnyard gardens, nature trails, wildlife habitats, memorial, and edible gardens.

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Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product.

Fun, safe, innovative, educational, and sustainable outdoor landscapes for children

There may be no more potent learning environment for a child than a garden. In caring for a garden, children gain skills in patience, perseverance, discipline, and hard work which can last a lifetime. And of course -- there's no end to kids' fun in the outdoors!

TOOLS FOR DESIGNERS AND EDUCATORS
For those who want to offer children the learning and growing experiences possible in planned outdoor environments, there is no better ally than this book. Designing Outdoor Environments for Children is a complete, practical toolkit for planning, designing, installing, and maintaining sustainable children's landscapes and play yards. This expert guide can enrich and improve every aspect of the experience, from launching the idea to obtaining funding, from ecological planning to involving children as participants. Inside, look for in-depth help with:

• Creating a sustainable project
• Conserving water and managing water quality
• Deciding what to plant, how to plant it, and how to keep it growing
• Conserving trees
• Controlling erosion
• Preserving wildlife
• Creating an environment where children learn through doing

INSPIRING REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES
Inside -- fully illustrated case studies, from idea to planning, to building, to ribbon cutting.

• Storybook courtyard
• Music garden
• Barnyard setting
• Nature trails
• Wildlife habitats
• Memorial gardens
• Vegetable and fruit gardens
• More

Author Biography

Lolly Tai, Ph.D., RLA, FASLA is chair and professor of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture at Temple University, and a practicing landscape architect with more than 25 years' experience. Dr. Tai's work focuses on the influence of the environment on landscape design. She is the coauthor and contributing writer of Landscape Design for Energy Efficiency, Tree Conservation and Home Site Development Guide, and Service Learning Across the Curriculum: Case Studies. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, a recipient of the 2004 Bradford Williams Medal for Meritorious Writing in Landscape Architecture Magazine and a recipient of the 2005 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Award of Distinction in Teaching.

Mary Taylor Haque, RLA, ASLA is a registered landscape architect and Alumni Distinguished Professor of Horticulture at Clemson University. Utilizing a service learning model, she and her students and colleagues have partnered with USDA, the Sustainable Universities Initiative, and community partners to design children's gardens across the state of South Carolina. A primary focus area of her research and outreach has been sustainable schoolyard habitats for K-12 schools. These outdoor classrooms incorporate design principles centered on sustainability and resource management as well as usefulness as a learning and play environment for children. She is a 2005 John Glenn Scholar in Service Learning and a recipient of the American Society for Horticulture Science Outstanding Undergraduate Educator Award.

Gina K . McLellan, Ph.D., has been a professor of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Clemson University for 25 years with a teaching focus on recreation and leisure environments and natural resource management. She has also directed the U.S. Forest Service's national recreation management training program throughout her tenure at Clemson. She and her students, through service learning projects, have spent the past ten years working to design and develop creative, quality outdoor environments for children which help those children to develop respect for the outdoors, enhance their learning, and improve socialization through play. Her work with children's outdoor environments has led to numerous awards and to serving as an advisor to others developing children's environments. She plans to continue researching and advocating environment-based education for schools around the country as a means of enhancing learning and environmental protection.

Erin Jordan Knight is director of natural resource protection at Upstate Forever, an organization that promotes sensible growth and protects special places in the upstate region of South Carolina. Her work includes providing and protecting the power and joy of nature for all children, and her public landscape designs include the Children's Garden at Linky Stone Park in Greenville, SC and the neighborhood park at Sliding Rock Creek, both community projects led by Leadership Greenville. Ms. Knight graduated Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Honors from Clemson University in 2001 with a degree in landscape architecture. She was awarded the Certificate of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the highest award given to a student landscape architect.