There is substantial scientific evidence related to contribution of outdoor environment and outdoor activities to young children’s learning as well as development in early childhood education literature.
Most of the researchers
expressed their ideas about why they considered outdoor environment as so
valuable for young children’s whole development including gross and fine motor
skills, intellectual skills, social skills as well as sensory skills since they
believed that the whole development of children could be well supported in
outdoors as long as they are appropriately adopted for.
For
instance, indicated that outdoor activities, naturally, offer children a chance
to do exercise by using their fine and gross muscles and mostly require being
active within the environment.
Parallel
to that idea, that the environment including natural elements provides many
opportunities for children to develop their motor skills, such as coordination,
balance and agility as well as protect children from childhood obesity.
At
the end of this article you should be able to explain the concept of outdoor
sports and state Classification and Characteristics of Recreation Activities in
Nigeria
Concept of Outdoor Sports
Outdoor
education is often synonymous with outdoor recreation. Many scholars agreed
that both terms are very similar. These things proved to be true
when Western State Coll. of Colorado, Phipps, & Cash (1991) explained that
various terms such as outdoor education, environmental education, wilderness
education, experiential education, adventure education, adventure activities,
risk activities, outdoor pursuits, outdoor activities, wilderness pursuits,
tourism, commercial recreation, and natural resource management have been used
to describe different aspects of outdoor recreation.
The
word outdoor recreation encompasses all aspects of natural environments and
adventure; it means a greater use of available natural resources.
This
underscores the important role of the environment in recreation vis-Ã -vis the
need to preserve a quality environment that will be conducive to the best
interests of man.
Outdoor
recreation or outdoor activities are leisure pursuits engaged in outside,
especially in (but not limited to) natural or semi-natural settings in and out
of town.
Examples
include adventure racing, back-packing, cycling, camping, canoeing, caving,
fishing, hiking, horseback riding, photography, running, sailing, skiing and
surfing.
During
this, human behaviour becomes obvious that the outdoor recreation leaves their
impact not just on the body, but also on the minds of the people.
In
Nigeria, outdoor recreation cannot be seen and perceived as a new phenomenon in
the life of the people. Since time immemorial, Nigerians have been engaging in
different play activities unconsciously during their leisure hours.
Playgrounds,
village and market square, are used as centers for cultural displays,
traditional ceremonies, as well as for different kinds of socio-religious
functions.
Nigerians of all sub-cultures have always had relaxation and leisure as part of their life-style. Most of the activities were locally based including the exhibition of youthful prowess in wrestling and village traditional dancing.
Classification and Characteristics of Recreation Activities in Nigeria
The recreation activities in Nigeria could be broadly classified as modern or indigenous.
The characteristics of recreation activities in Nigeria are
discussed using the following criteria; location of leisure activity or
facility, space requirement for the activity, characteristics of the
participants and operational basis for the activity.
i. Location of Recreation Activity: Certain modern and indigenous activities have similar locational characteristics.
Modern activities such as picnic, camping and
indigenous activities like games take place in the country side.
ii. Space Requirement:
Modern activities such as golf, polo require large open space while indigenous
activities like dara (Hausa) ayo (Yourba) take smaller space to pursue.
iii. Characteristics of the Participants: Age, sex and a status are the three components of participant‟s characteristics in this discussion.
Age: Modern sporting
activities like soccer, basketball and indigenous sports like Kokawa (Hausa)
are more associated with the youth, while golf and ayo (Yoruba) are associated
with the grown up or older people.
Sex: In
traditional setting females participate more in home based activities than
their male counter parts. Similarly, males participates more in active games
than females sports such as soccer, boxing etc are widely associated with males
and handball with females.
Status: In
Nigerian context, modern leisure time activities like golf, polo etc. are
dominated by certain class of people – the rich
iv. Operational Basis:
Traditionally, indigenous recreation activities are operated on
non-subscription basis while modern spectator sports require payment for
subscription as gate fees etc.
Most
modern activities have standardized space size while traditional or indigenous
activities have no such standards.
This article has been taught the concept and classification of outdoor sport. In subsequent lessons, you will learn about the meaning and purposes of outdoor sports.
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