Children learn through contact — direct contact with different environments, materials, and people. They learn through their relationships with other adults and children, they learn by doing things and manipulating their environments. At adventure playgrounds children gain knowledge through experience-based learning, by thinking through problems and ideas with adults and other children.
Children's ideas inspire the creation of their own activities, structures, and games. Advenure playgrounds might be initiated by adults, but they are invented by young people. Children build the structures, create the activities, and in turn have an immediate impact on the nature of the playground.
Community is important for children and for adults. Adventure playgrounds provide an opportunity for children to meet one another and make their own community through games, activities, and the development of friendships.
Adventure playgrounds become centers, accessible to the entire community, with both indoor and outdoor play areas. Adventure playgrounds can be located within a child's neighborhood, providing a free and open space that both children and adults come to whenever they want.
All children need a space that they can call their own, a place where they can be loud, dirty, silly, spontaneous, and anything else they feel like. Adventure playgrounds can provide such a space even in the middle of a large city.