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School playgrounds offer everyday opportunities for physically active and social play that combats obesity, develops skills, and promotes well-being. However, teachers' fear of the legal consequences of injury can elicit over-zealous risk reduction with the result that playgrounds lack challenge, and the potential benefits of play become limited. In this research, we trialled a simple, cost-effective strategy to encourage children to be more active and social on a school playground. Over 11 weeks, we made available materials with no fixed purpose (e.g. car tires, boxes) to a playground of children aged five to seven. Accelerometers showed children became significantly more active. Interviews with teachers suggested children also became more social, creative, and resilient. However, despite no incidence of injuries, teachers perceived an increased risk and encountered dilemmas regarding duty of care. We conclude that future interventions should address issues of 'surplus safety' at individual, school, system, and policy levels.

Explores the question, What is the role of school grounds as sites for learning? Observation and interview data from five Australian primary schools displayed large differences between schools in the types of play that 8- to 10-year-old children engaged in, particularly play behaviors categorized as involving environmental cognition. Explores the relative importance of the school ground environment. (Contains 30 references.) (Author/NB)

This paper explains how the location of motorsports events is an integral part of the marketing of the sport of motor racing and of all its attendant commercial interests. Case studies of the major motorsports events staged in public street circuits in Australia are used to illustrate how the locations have particular symbolic significance that adds legitimacy to the sport of motor racing, and the messages and impacts associated with these events. The paper examines the wider significance of allowing special public spaces in cities to be used for motorsports events, and contends that the marketing of sporting events should not be considered independently of the major challenges facing the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores links between sport and health, focusing on a range of health outcomes of staging motorsport megaevents in significant public spaces in Australian cities. The article argues that an oversimplification of the links between sport and health produces a cultural filter that diverts attention from the negative health outcomes of sport. A major contribution of this study is the consideration of economic health and environmental health as well as public health. The interactions between these types of health are considered in a more holistic assessment of links between sport and health. The article concludes that the symbolic location of motorsport events in Australian cities both reflects and reinforces societal values that have important implications for health, both now and into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the motor racing events held in the Parliamentary Zone, Canberra, during the June long weekends of 2000, 2001 and 2002. It assesses claims, repeated frequently by supporters of event tourism strategies, that these events benefited Canberra and its residents. It then considers whether staging such events in a significant national place concords with values argued to be fundamental to sound urban planning, including social justice, democracy and ecological sustainability. The article considers both local impacts of the motor racing events, as well as broader implications and messages relevant to environmental and public health issues. While recognising that these events provide an entertainment spectacle and a cultural experience previously unavailable in Canberra, the article presents evidence that the motor races exhibit a range of negative impacts, and argues that some of the claimed benefits are more illusory than real. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been limited recent geographic research on children's use of school grounds. This study explores the impact of school grounds on the play behaviours of children in primary schools. It examines the way in which some features of school grounds stimulate more of the type of play that is likely to produce environmental learning. The paper reports on research findings from two primary schools in Canberra, Australia. At each school, multiple research techniques were employed, including behaviour mapping of children's play, interviews with children, and analysis of children's drawings of their school grounds. Children's play in one school displayed high levels of interaction with the natural environment. The paper provides insights on the potential of school grounds as sites for environmental learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]