‘It’s fun in the legs’: children’s dwelling in garden trampolines

ABSTRACT

Physical activity is critical for children’s current and future health status. Understanding how children’s everyday outdoor environments encourage movement could help progress the health-environment debate. In response to this, and adopting a theoretical focus upon dwelling, skills and the haptic engagement, this qualitative case study explores 25 Danish 10–11-year-old children’s everyday use of garden trampolines. Three principal methods of data generation were employed in the fieldwork: photo-elicited interviews, group interviews and participant observation at children’s important outdoor places. Findings suggest that garden trampolines are important everyday outdoor places for children that – among other things – can spark a vigorous physical movement in abundantly meaningful and joyful ways. Further, findings indicate that trampolines are places of inexhaustible movement opportunities, which operate through haptic sensations, feelings of skilfulness and attunement, expansions of the range of motions available to the body, and interactions between children. Implications for future research and design are highlighted.     

Gmo Neighbourhoods – Will Co‐Existence Be A Geographically Realistic Possibility?

In Denmark, there has been widespread opposition to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a result of which rules have been developed relating to the co‐existence of GM, conventionally and organically produced crops. This has been in the form of a spatially elaborated implementation of the precautionary principle adopted in the Maastricht Treaty from 1992 by the EU. We concretized these rules in relation to actual landscape practices among primary producers of sugar beet in Denmark, and simulated the co‐existence of GM and conventional sugar beet in an area of intensive sugar beet production in Lolland, South Eastern Denmark. The theoretical basis for our work finds three major sources of inspiration; namely Ulrich Beck's theory of the ‘risk society’, Torsten Hägerstrand's concept of ‘the process landscape’ and its relation to the social practices of land users, and Bri‐an Wynne's studies of the discrepancy between theoretical and practical knowledge related to environmental risk. The farmers, who were involved in the study, were interviewed concerning their opinions on land‐use practices in cases of co‐existence. Interviews were carried out both before and after the study took place. It is concluded that although the farmers are positive towards the possibility of introducing GM sugar beet, it is not realistic to expect the rules of co‐existence to be observed, which makes the risk assessment behind the new rules unrealistic. Further studies of social practice in relation to trends and geographical variations in the distribution of structure, size and fragmentation of agricultural holdings are recommended in order to investigate possibilities for realistic co‐existence.     

The Power of Models in Planning: The Case of DaisyGIS and Nitrate Leaching

Spatial deterministic simulation models such as DaisyGIS are increasingly being used for decision‐making in European planning. In Denmark specifically, there is an increasing interest at the regional level to use DaisyGIS as an administrative tool. There are, however, uncertainties associated with the use of these deterministic models, partly due to the spatial variation in input parametres. This study evaluates the use of DaisyGIS for nitrate leaching assessments based on nitrate leaching experiments carried out at the Marbjerg experimental site at Roskilde University. The study includes geostatistical analysis of soil and hydraulic variables and the use of remote sensing for deriving spatial information about the Leaf Area Index. It is found that the model predicts nitrate leaching well when using site‐specific input data but it is quite sensitive to the parameterization of carbon, the C/N ratio and variations in the Leaf Area Index (LAI). With the increasing use of Daisy in the counties, there is a need to find better ways of handling uncertainties in model output which can be used by decision‐makers and to study further the impact of spatial LAI assimilation on catchment scale nitrate leaching processes.