Primary Beginnings is excited to be a part of the Early Learning Initiative’s Preventing Obesity by Design (POD) program!
The POD program was created to reverse the trend of childhood obesity by improving the outdoor environmental diversity of childcare centers in North Carolina. Research suggests that improving outdoor environmental diversity can increase a child’s physical activity; time spent outdoors and will make them more aware of fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods.
This program includes the following 4 key activities:
- Teacher Training on the outdoors to promote physical activity and healthy nutrition.
- Participatory Design Assistance to have preschool staff and volunteers, and to help modify the playgrounds and learning environments to support the children’s daily nutritional and physical activity needs.
- Start Up Incentives to purchase plants and tools to support teachers and implement projects.
- Dissemination of information to ensure transfer of knowledge – the 31 demonstration project acts as a catalyst for change by other NC childcare providers.
We are proud and excited that our Spring Forest preschool has been selected to be part of this grant! For more information about the POD program, please visit: https://naturalearning.org/content/preventing-obesity-design-pod-2
