Physical environmental influences on students within school playgrounds

The physical environment is an influence that many students would prefer to be enhanced to provide more opportunities to be active. The physical environment of Australian school playgrounds contains a large proportion of natural environment features (e.g. bushy areas, grassed areas, trees, ponds and water features) and built environment features (e.g. fixed playground equipment, playground markings, sports equipment, sandpits, shade sails, asphalt and concrete areas). An awareness of the physical environmental characteristics of a setting is important prior to implementing any school playground intervention strategy. This chapter will provide an overview for researchers of the physical environment-level influences that have been investigated within school playground activities.