Active play during the early years is critical for healthy physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. Early childhood educators can support active play programming and help young children develop important physical literacy and fundamental movement skills.

ActivePlay.ca provides free videos, posters, and articles to show how to deliver important play-based physical activities in a wide variety of indoor and outdoor settings.

Learn Through Active Play is a free program for early childhood educators and child care professionals to help build their understanding of physical literacy and create enriching learning environments.

The 24-Hour Movement Guidelines recommend trading indoor activities for outdoor activities. Active outdoor play helps children build resilience, self-regulation, and skills to deal with stress. Outdoor Play Canada has resources to support outdoor early childhood education, such as the toolkit liked below.

• Risk-Benefit Assessment for Outdoor Play: A Canadian Toolkit

Children and youth spend a large portion of their day at school, making it an ideal setting to integrate daily movement and build healthy habits.

Our School Health page has resources for elementary and secondary school teachers to support the physical and health education curriculum. Elementary schools are required by Policy/Program Memorandum 138 to provide a minimum of 20 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity during instructional time to all students each school day.

A very small percentage of school-aged children in Algoma use active modes of transportation, such as walking, biking, rollerblading, or scooting, to get to school (only 7.5% of 3 to 17-year-olds in 2019)1. Walking or wheeling to school may be less feasible in rural areas and can be challenging during the snowy winter months. Where and when feasible, schools can work with parents, public health, and other school partners to increase active transportation to school. Ontario Active School Travel also has helpful information and tools.

There is a concerning trend where girls are much less active than boys. In Ontario, only 28.6% of girls aged 12-17 were at or above the recommended level of physical activity in 2021. This is compared to 48.5% of boys the same age2. Special attention should be given to providing fun, inclusive, and positive programs and environments for girls to enjoy physical activity.

Adults spend roughly 60% of their day at work, making it an ideal setting to integrate daily movement. Employers can encourage physical activity through education, policy, and creating supportive environments. It makes good business sense, as healthy employees are happy, productive, and more present at work.

Ways to encourage physical activity in the workplace:

• Post maps of nearby walking routes with various times/distances for staff to use during their break or lunch
• Offer ergonomic assessments of workstations to prevent strains and injuries that can inhibit physical activity
• Provide a standing desk option for workstations
• Create a space for secure bike storage for staff who bike to work
• Integrate active time (e.g., standing, stretching) into meetings
• Ensure stairs are safe and accessible
• Offer opportunities for staff to be active together, such as an exercise class or walking/jogging group
• Provide a room or space with basic equipment where staff can stretch and/or exercise
• Develop a flextime policy that allows staff to adjust their working hours to accommodate physical activity (e.g., a lunchtime exercise class)
• Use health spending accounts to help pay for memberships and/or team registration fees
• Register a workplace team for a community event, like a charitable run or golf tournament

Public health is available to consult with workplaces on using health promotion strategies to support physical activity.

How communities are designed can encourage and enable people to be active in their everyday lives. Offering opportunities for people to be active and social also helps enhance community belonging.

A few ways municipalities can support physical activity include:

• designing streets and transportation networks that are safe, accessible for all ages, and support active modes of transportation
• creating connected and walkable neighbourhoods
• prioritizing the preservation of and access to parks, green spaces, and natural environments
• investing in new and updating existing recreation infrastructure
• offering free or low-cost recreational opportunities for all ages and abilities
• including culturally relevant activities that make connections to the land and reinforce cultural identity
• helping parents or guardians be active while attending children’s activities by providing walking maps, a walking track, or stationary bikes in recreation facilities
• supporting open streets programs that close streets to cars and encourage walking, as well as other forms of physical activity

The resources below are helpful tools for integrating health into planning.

• Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit
• Healthy Rural Communities Toolkit

Public health can support municipal partners by providing evidence-based recommendations and community health data to support decision making.

Algoma is full of natural beauty to explore and experience! Find places where you can hike, bike, ski, snowshoe, canoe, kayak, or bird watch on the Algoma Country website.

Many municipalities also have information about parks, recreation, and outdoor skating rinks on their websites.

North Algoma

• Dubreuilville
• Wawa
• White River

Sault Ste. Marie & Area

• Prince Township
• Sault Ste. Marie

Central Algoma

• Blind River
• Bruce Mines
• Echo Bay
• Hilton Beach
• Huron Shores
• Laird
• Jocelyn
• Plummer
• St. Joseph
• Thessalon

Elliot Lake & Area

• Elliot Lake
• North Shore
• Spanish