Free, wild and adventurous play in nature will ignite children’s imaginations at Bernheim's Playcosystem, a new 10-acre natural playground. Playcosystem is designed in harmony with nature to provide children with open-ended, physically challenging, and unstructured play opportunities that support healthy development.
“Playcosystem is designed in harmony with nature to provide children with open-ended, physically challenging, and unstructured play opportunities that support healthy development. It is also a play laboratory intended to inspire more natural play environments throughout our region and beyond.”
- Claude Stephens, Facilitator of Outreach and Regenerative Design at Bernheim and Director of Children at Play Network
“Free play is important for kids because that is where they learn a lot of their life skills, social skills, and how to work with others. It also teaches them about their own self-confidence and self-importance. And it helps develop their creativity.”
- Betty Jeunemartis, Play Cousins
"Playcosystem will allow research on how children interact with nature and how that can be interpreted as meeting science standards, and getting early childhood and primary grade teachers to feel comfortable in nature and be able to go out and use nature as part of their curriculum."
- Dr. Meg Gravil, UofL Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Educator
"One common tenet of both Bernheim’s and UofL’s mission is outreach and the provision of services to improve the lives of residents in area communities. Collaboration between the two organizations on research and educational endeavors offers increased capacity to advance that mission, particularly with young children, families, and educators. We are excited about partnering with staff at Bernheim to explore and learn along with them."
-Dr. Meg Gravil, UofL Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Educator
