Fawn Crossing play area emphasizes nature at Whitetail Woods Regional Park near Farmington

Out at Fawn Crossing, the new nature play area at Whitetail Woods Regional Park near Farmington, kids balance on logs, build bridges across a trickling waterway, and construct mammoth forts in a patch of woods.

"Those forts get so beautiful and magnificent and complicated and intricate that it always feels like a shame to pull them down," said Autumn Hubbell, outdoor education coordinator for Dakota County Parks. "But we do take them down so that the next children can be creative about their play."

The new play area opened in September with Whitetail Woods, and is part of a growing trend of nature play areas throughout the country.

"There certainly are hundreds and hundreds of them at this point," said Ken Finch, president of Green Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood, a nonprofit in Omaha.

He said the nature play movement started gaining popularity in 2005 with the release of Richard Louv's book "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder."

"It's been growing pretty steadily ever since," Finch said.

Nature playscapes can vary. Some are multimillion-dollar affairs, but others "really are no more than putting a little bit of temporary fencing around an existing piece of nature," he said.

The Fawn Crossing nature play area cost $35,000 to design and build, Hubble said. It includes a sand pit, a water feature, boulders and logs for climbing, stepping stumps, a wooded area for fort building and a section of restored prairie. Grapevine sculptures in the shape of pods and nests — made by local artist David W. Cook — are tucked in the woods and hang from trees.

"A lot of what we call 'nature play' is what we just called 'play' as a kid," said Amy Stiennon, a seasonal naturalist for Dakota County Parks. "It's just kind of quintessential childhood."

Playing in the past

Nostalgia is one reason for the growing interest in nature play, Finch said.

"On Saturdays, we'd go out in the morning and Mom or Dad told us to be home by the time the streetlights came on," he said. "That play wasn't always in natural areas, but inevitably a lot of it was … a little creek in the neighborhood or a patch of woods or, for more rural kids, maybe it was the back 40 on the farm.

"It was a very good childhood," he said, "full of exploration and adventures and freedom and challenges."

Also, he said, recent research shows nature play fosters creativity.

"This kind of relatively free, unstructured play in a very rich, dynamic environment is perfect for child development," Finch said.

Traditional playgrounds can lend themselves to predictable ways of interacting, said Hubbell.

"A child can feel that," she said. "There's a ladder. I'm supposed to climb up that ladder. There is a slide. I'm supposed to slide down that slide."

In nature play areas, she said, "it's really open to their creativity and their ideas of how and what they want to do with the space."

Natural creativity

Nature play is also a way to get kids connected to the environment.

Fawn Crossing is intended to serve as a bridge to the other natural features at Whitetail Woods, Hubbell said. For example, once kids grow comfortable with sand and water in the play area, they might play in the water along the shore. After building a fort in the woods, they might explore more of the park's wooded areas.

Finch said he encourages parents to act like lifeguards in nature play areas — be watchful, but let kids develop independence.

Natural play areas often include certain acceptable risk, he said. For instance, features that encourage balancing or climbing help develop judgment, self-confidence, and resilience, Finch said.

Stiennon, the naturalist with Dakota County, agreed that adults should hang back.

"A big part of nature play is to not give specific directions," she said. "That's really important to fostering creativity."

Pete Vondelinde of Rosemount recently visited Fawn Crossing with his wife and son. He said he likes the use of "everyday objects as toys."

Park workers added muffin tins, pans and spatulas to the sand pit, so they sometimes see kids making sand muffins or frosting rocks, Hubbell said. They also brought yarn and had a "weaving tree" for a while.

Park staffers plan to continually change things to keep Fawn Crossing new and fresh.

"It's an evolving space," Hubbell said.

Liz Rolfsmeier is a Twin Cities-based freelance writer. Her e-mail is lizannrolfsmeier@gmail.com.