Welcome to the Kindergarten Outdoor Learning Space of the Future!
Wildflowers! Garden Patch! Secret Garden! Moss Wall! Risky Play! Climbing Structures! Loose Parts! Cocoons! Water Play!
How can we design an outdoor space for young children that encourages curiosity, creativity, play, and learning?
This continues an idea we explored in more depth in Biomimicry and Biophilic Design: Stepping into Kindergarten — here, the focus shifts from indoor spaces to what’s possible outdoors. This is biomimicry applied to childhood spaces themselves — not just teaching kids about nature’s designs, but building their everyday environment out of them.
Can we embrace courageous play and recognise children’s innate desire to challenge themselves and push their boundaries? Risky play can broadly be defined as play that involves an element of risk, challenge, and adventure, such as climbing to heights. While a kindergarten should be a safe environment, carefully choosing and designing play equipment is essential to ensure safety while promoting exploration. The aim is to provide limitless possibilities, encourage exploration and self-discovery, foster independence and a love of nature.
Utilising natural elements, plant material, and loose parts will give children less directed, more open-ended play opportunities. Many play spaces are made of manufactured play equipment, where the adults or the manufacturer more or less determine the engagement. Designing outdoor spaces rich with open-ended materials and opportunities empowers children to be the architects of their own play. By mimicking nature, we reduce our environmental impact, enhance our spaces, and create designs that speak to all our senses.
The kindergarten outdoor learning space of the future is designed to inspire young minds through engaging, safe, and sustainable environments. By fostering a love of nature and encouraging exploration, these spaces not only benefit individual development but also enrich the broader community’s understanding of environmental stewardship
The outdoor learning environment extends the classroom, offering a rich landscape for educational experiences. This integration promotes an active lifestyle and supports children’s physical and mental well-being. Sliding doors can facilitate indoor-outdoor transitions, allowing children to engage with the natural world while still safe from rain, snow, sun and wind.
Using sustainable materials and nature-inspired inventions helps create outdoor environments that provide children with safe materials and insights into how to make sustainable choices when building. Outdoor furniture could be made from wood flakes. Painting and rendering walls with paint inspired by lotus flowers offers radiant colour intensity, lasting UV and weather protection, self-cleaning facades, and a longer lifecycle for your buildings.
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A moss wall in a kindergarten classroom can serve as an interactive activity that introduces children to the wonders of nature. Not only does it foster a sense of wonder and curiosity, but it also provides a unique hands-on learning experience. Moss walls can thrive in regions with high rainfall or where increased rainfall is anticipated due to climate change. In drier areas, a wall with succulents can be an alternative. However, it is important to note that succulents might struggle in desert conditions due to their soft, fleshy leaves, which are not suited for extreme dryness.
Living walls are self-sufficient vertical gardens attached to the exterior of a building. They are innovative approaches to re-greening the planet and reconnecting children with the natural world. In today’s society, many children are increasingly disconnected from nature, making it vital to design outdoor spaces that bridge this gap. After all, it’s difficult to care for something you know little about.
Biophilic design seeks to restore our connection with nature through biodiverse green infrastructure. A green wall creates a habitat for bees and burrowing insects and encourages natural colonisation. Observing wildlife in these spaces deepens children’s connection to nature and cultivates a soothing environment where they can relax and unwind.
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By providing our children with opportunities to explore through mud kitchens, sandpits, and loose parts, we’re setting the stage for a lifetime of creativity and innovation.
Low-placed swings, like tyre swings and cocoon swings, are fantastic for promoting autonomy in children. Loose parts play is where the real magic happens. This concept involves using natural or synthetic materials that can be manipulated in multiple ways. Think about:
- A pile of sticks or branches (checked for safety)
- Rocks, leaves, flowers and other natural elements
- Recycled materials like boxes and bottles
These items allow children to experiment, build, and create. They can construct forts, test out ideas, and explore their creativity in ways that fixed equipment simply can’t offer.
Children thrive in flexible environments that offer open-ended possibilities. Equipment that can be used in various ways—like balls, sandboxes, or even self-constructed forts—fuels their imagination and curiosity. Playground design plays a crucial role in this. Children who have access to adaptable play areas are more likely to engage deeply and enjoyably.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is biomimicry?
Biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature for solutions, then applying what we learn to design and problem-solving. Instead of inventing from scratch, it means studying how plants, animals, and ecosystems have already solved a challenge — like staying cool, collecting water, or absorbing carbon — and adapting that strategy for human use.
How does biomimicry help address climate change?
Nature has been adapting to extreme conditions for billions of years, so many organisms already hold working solutions to problems we now face at a larger scale — cooling buildings without electricity (termite mounds), collecting water in drought (the Namib beetle), protecting coastlines from storms (mangrove roots), and capturing carbon (corals, forests, kelp). Biomimicry means studying those solutions and applying the same principles to human design.
How can children get involved in biomimicry?
Children don’t need special training to think like a biomimicrist — just curiosity and a habit of asking “how does nature solve this?” Simple ways to start include a backyard scavenger hunt for nature’s patterns, a “design-an-animal” challenge for a changing climate, or building a small model (like a passive-cooling structure or a water collector) inspired by something they’ve observed outdoors.
Is biomimicry only for scientists and engineers?
No — biomimicry is as much a mindset as a profession. Anyone can practice it by observing nature closely and asking design questions. Professional biomimicry practitioners apply it in architecture, materials science, and engineering, but the same core skill — careful observation followed by “what if we built it that way?” — is exactly what this post’s classroom and family activities are designed to build in children.
Åsa Jomård
In 2015, Åsa completed a course in Biomimicry: A Sustainable Design Methodology at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. With over 10 years of experience exploring nature for inspiration and as a former member of Ben, Biomimicry Education Network, she brings both academic background and creative teaching experience to her work. Her materials seamlessly integrate stories, nature observations, and design challenges, making them perfect for inquiry-led learning in early primary contexts.
AI was used as a Thinking Partner.