“The focus of experiential education is on broadening the spaces and horizons of experience, especially by enabling adventurous forms of action and practical self-activity. The adventure playground is a special form of stimulating and promoting such developmental and learning processes in children and young adults.”
Prehofer, 2005, 186

The Adventure Playground (ASP) « Adventure@Lënster » took place for the first time in 2011 at the  „Am Brouch“ site in Junglinster. Since 2013, the land «An Eechhëlz», also in Junglinster, 1ha in size, consisting of individual private plots in the middle of the forest, has been the new location for the ASP. This is under the supervision of the SEA Lënster Päiperlék, as well as the municipality of Junglinster. The adventure playground is organised as part of the summer activities and takes place every 2 years alternating with the «Mini- Lënster» children’s play city. The adventure playground is set up in close cooperation with the municipality of Junglinster on the site «An Echhëlz».The sanitary facilities will be provided externally. An already leased garden of the SEA Päiperlék can be used directly next to the ASP site.

The adventure playground will be a place for diverse and intentional experiences in nature. Here contact with nature does not just happen by chance.

Through a wide variety of options, the children will be motivated to engage in physical activity (running, climbing, jumping, balancing etc.) and sensory perception (taste, feel, smell, touch and hearing). Nature provides children and youth with an inexhaustible supply of possibilities for play and experience. Through close contact with nature, children and youth learn about and observe significant life processes (growth, the elements, changeability, etc.).

Closely related to this learning goal is the personal and social development of the children and youth. This development includes that of cognitive, emotional and motor skills, curiosity, creativity, agility, courage, self-sufficiency and initiative, as well as critical thinking, teamwork, solidarity, and consciousness of responsibility. The collective search for solutions, as well as productive group work, strengthens group cohesiveness and builds a positive team dynamic.

The adventure playground is also to be a practice area for the resolution of conflicts that can arise during group or individual activities. Educators will work to ensure that the environment remains fair, and the children can test out and employ the proposed solutions given during these exercises in their everyday activities.

The intentional absence of performance pressure during this project is to encourage and allow competitive behaviour to give way to cooperative thinking. The search for partners in play, for example in the building of a fort, provides occasion to practice the skills of solidarity and tolerance.

An additional goal of the adventure playground is to emphasize and encourage participation and independence. The children and youth will be given opportunities to take action, and to learn to make good use of their time. They may determine their own activities and decide whether they would like to follow the suggestions of the educators or choose another occupation, be it an individual pursuit or a group activity.

“Children play, experiment and learn independently. They can, for example, choose for themselves whether they would rather spend some time alone or undertake an activity with other children. They can also decide how long they would like to play with someone. In this way, children discover that independence and individual responsibility, as well as expectations and collective responsibility, go hand in hand. However, prerequisite to a child’s ability to respect adults and other children is that the child knows his or her own wants, needs and interests. This, in turn, requires that the child be both aware of these things, and able to articulate them to others.”
Krauss, 2003, 40

The children and youth are to be included in planning and making decisions for the Adventure Playground Project, which will give them opportunities to identify more with the project, as well as develop a sense of responsibility for their actions.

“Children want to be taken seriously; their opinions should be gathered, their ideas considered. It is, after all, their playground.”
Krauss, 2003, 47

The children should be given practical opportunities to actively participate, for example through a children’s committee, selected by the children themselves, to represent their interests. In this way, their majority decisions, even those which run counter to the inclination of the educators, may be carried out, so long as they are feasible and educationally sound.

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