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Playful
Green
Planet

Reconnecting children to nature and community

Nature-based play is important for children’s development and wellbeing as well as their connection and care for nature.

Research tells us that:

  • Children in urban areas and from low socio-economic backgrounds spend less time in gardens and nature (Natural England, 2025), despite the benefits to wellbeing and the way it encourages pro-environmental behaviour (Natural England, 2020).
  • Parents believe their own childhood was better than that of their children and desire more in-person play experiences for their children (NSPCC, 2025).

Nature contact seems to be especially supportive for more disadvantaged children who are also the children who spend the least time outdoors.

What is Playful Green Planet?

Playful Green Planet transforms green spaces into ecologically thriving outdoor playrooms and classrooms that grow children’s (0-11) ecological citizenship.

Playful Green Planet is committed to growing, connecting and supporting a movement of Playful Green Planet Stewards (from the RSA Fellowship) who are co-creating and co-producing nature-based play and learning experiences for all children and the early years, community and school settings in their neighbourhoods.

The change we want to see:

  • For children: A generation of future leaders with an increase in capabilities to protect and regenerate their communities and the natural world.
  • For communities: School, early years settings and community cultures that increasingly foster nature and community connectedness through play.
  • For nature: Unlocking the potential of green spaces to deliver positive ecological gains.
  • For policy and practice: Evidence, influencing and a scalable model that leads to systemic change.
A young boy wearing a gray jacket and brown backpack stands in a forest, looking up and smiling, surrounded by green trees and foliage.

How does Playful Green Planet work?

Playful Green Planet  spaces and experiences are founded on the following principles:

  • For all children: nature-based play and learning experiences accessible to every single child under 11 and to the early years, community and school settings that support them.
  • Co-creation in place: spaces and experiences led by local people and co-created with the strengths and needs of the community, educators and children at the heart.
  • Triple benefits: deliver measurable benefits that grow children’s ecological citizenship, community connection and nature regeneration all at once.
  • Sustainable: embedded within the local offer and evolving to deliver impact for the long term.

Playful Green Planet aims to reach 100,000 children by 2030.

Who’s involved?

The RSA, in partnership with the Eden Project and Bath Spa University, has been developing Playful Green Planet since 2022, supported by a wider network including Grant Associates, House of Imagination, HundrED and Land Trust.

We began by testing this approach with two pilots in Dundee and Hull, with over 400 children benefiting and over 50 local partnerships shaped in the first six months. Children helped co-design outdoor play and learning experiences, transforming underused spaces to embed nature play into community life.

In 2025, we launched the Playful Green Planet Network – a growing national movement of place-based organisations who already work with children, taking the lead in reimagining local green spaces through nature-based play. Our first new networks of stewards are Redbridge Council’s Fairlop Waters Country Park and Cody Dock’s community gardens in East London.

Join the conversation

If you’re a Fellow, join the conversation via the Playful Green Planet Circle Space

Join the Playful green planet space on Circle

Meet the Advisory Committee

The Playful Green Planet Advisory Committee brings together practitioners, academics, impact entrepreneurs, and policy experts in nature-based creative play to provide strategic oversight, support decision-making, and connections to partners and stakeholders for Playful Green Planet.

A man stands outdoors in a lush, green park, speaking and gesturing with his hands to a small group of people gathered around him, listening attentively.

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