Creating a school playground in Papua New Guinea: A participatory approach with young children

Abstract

This chapter draws on a research project entitled 'Conununity Engagement in the Redevelopment of a Papua New Guinean School Playground: Participatory Research in Design, Construction, Play and Learning' (Simoncini et al., 2016). The aim of the project was to investigate how a playgrow1d redevelopment might impact on children's play, classroom engagement and behaviour, school attendance and the wider school community. The project team included both Local and visiting academic researchers, an Australian based playground builder as well as pre-service teachers enrolled at the Pacific Adventist University, Papua New Guinea, tradespeople, local teachers and communities. The project was to redevelop the school playground at Koiari Park Adventist Primary School located on the Pacific Adventist University campus in collaboration with children, parents and teachers. While children from Years 1 to 8 were active participants and contributors before, during and after the redevelopment, in this chapter we specifically outline how, younger children from Years I to 2 (aged 6 to 9 years) shared their ideas about play, and later their reactions to the new playground through drawing and verbal descriptions. We begin by offering a provocation and contextualising the project, then briefly outline the research approach and share findings, insights and implications from our experiences.