A playscape guide for the Schiele Museum Nature Trail
(Book - Regular Print)

Note: Appendices not included.

Thesis,MSES,Green Mountain College,2012

Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this professional project was to develop a guide for program design and function of a natural play space off the Schiele Museum Nature Trail. Research was conducted for one month. Multi-modal questionnaires and focus group interviews were used to collect information. Data were gathered from visitors and stakeholders both on-site and online. Data about how the Museum is used, the Nature Trail, opinions about the play space and play values were obtained using questionnaires from 5% of Museum on-site traffic for the month (n=100) and 0.008% responses from the known internet traffic (n=28). Sixty-five children and 23 adults participated in focus group interviews and personal interviews about the proposed play space. Climbing activities, slides, access to water, playhouses and animals ranked highly in all the interviews and questionnaires for desirable outdoor play features. Environmental Education (EE) programs are presented for the proplay spaceyspace based on design and EE goals. Concept maps and sample photos for a "best fit" for the Schiele Museum present the play features of play spaceal playspace in two of three outlined phases. This guide aims to serve the needs of the Schiele Museum of Natural History, and can serve as a case study for other nature centers or natural history Museums as a resource for devplay space natural playspace.