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All we had to do was to construct a set of molecular models and begin to play.” When James Watson and Francis Crick set out to solve DNA’s structure, they drew inspiration from chemist Linus Pauling, who had recently cracked one aspect of protein structure by tinkering with toy-like physical models. The pair spent hours fiddling with wire and cardboard representations of DNA’s components. By trial and error, following their curiosity and investigating different possibilities, they deduced the structure of the double helix.

Emergent breakthrough

It’s an example of how scientific breakthroughs can emerge from something that looks remarkably like play, a word that conjures up images of something easy or trivial. “It has a definite overtone of frivolous or unserious or not important,” says Paul Ramchandani, LEGO Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the University of Cambridge. But nothing could be further from the truth. A growing body of evidence is showing that play is a vital activity, associated with the development of a raft of cognitive and emotional skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving and resilience, as well as the ability to form strong relationships and navigate social situations.

For all its importance, it’s hard to define exactly what we mean by “play”. Researchers tend to adapt their definitions of play to the particular contexts they are investigating, such as adventurous or risky play, says Ramchandani. But one key feature unites them all: “It’s an activity that is joyful and enjoyable to children,” he says. Children devote a vast amount of time and energy to play. “It’s the majority of their world, particularly when they’re very young.”

Play is not unique to humans; some young animals, such as rats, spend a lot of time playing. But why such a behaviour evolved that distracts young animals from important tasks such as seeking food is still debated. One idea is that it helps animals practise important physical skills, another that it helps develop social bonds, says Ramchandani.

Human play is much richer and changes as a child develops. “Children are thrown into a world of uncertainty and the unknown when they’re born,” says Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Head of Educational Impact at . “And the main mechanism to deal with that uncertainty is to play, to sense, and try and experiment with things around you. This is how children learn through play”

It begins in infants with parent-child bonding that builds relationships and early learning, later incorporating social elements with peers and siblings, and goes on to include pretend play, physical play and risky play. But young humans also seem to have a distinctive form of play that involves deliberately creating problems for themselves. One theory is that this is how humans practice curiosity-driven thinking, by inventing problems that force us to come up with creative solutions.

Testing ideas

Ethically, we can’t deprive children of play to test all these ideas, says Ramchandani. But you can study what happens when you expand opportunities for play. “Increasing play of various kinds is correlated with positive outcomes across almost every aspect of development,” he says.

Evidence is also emerging from experimental studies that certain kinds of play can help children learn as well as, or in some cases better than, formal instruction. In 2022, Ramchandani and his team at the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge analysed 39 studies of “guided” play in children aged three to eight. Unlike “free” play, where children decide what to do, guided play involves a playful educational task where children have some freedom of choice, but are gently steered towards a learning goal by an adult.

The study found that guided play was as effective as conventional teaching for developing key skills such as literacy, numeracy, social skills and thinking skills. For developing some maths skills, namely understanding shapes, guided play was superior. This may be because guided play lets children explore shape in a range of different ways. The joyful aspect is also key. “If children are enjoying themselves, they’re going to engage for longer,” says Ramchandani.

Hands-on play with objects such as blocks and puzzles may also help children develop scientific reasoning skills. In 2023, Ramchandani, Thomsen and their colleagues analysed 102 studies of the use of objects in learning, mainly of early primary-aged children and found that there were benefits to children’s spatial, literacy and science skills, with the strongest evidence for benefits in developing mathematical skills.

Creative links

There are links, too, between play and creativity, a central pillar of the scientific endeavour. “You’re creating, you are experimenting, you are buzzing ideas together,” says Ramchandani. “There is an obvious parallel with playing imaginatively or playing with friends.” So what looked like child’s play with wire and cardboard turns out to be anything but trivial—it won Watson and Crick a Nobel Prize and unlocked one of biology’s greatest mysteries.

Build, solve, invent

Right, kids. You’ve built a LEGO spaceship but it keeps crashing. Now what? This is the kind of challenge posed by LEGO Education’s new at home STEM sets, whose new “build-solve-invent” play loop is based on research into how children develop scientific skills.

The new sets incorporate both free play with LEGO bricks and guided play, following building instructions. Children are presented first with a
guided build showing them what to make.

But the LEGO designers have included a challenge that the child has to solve, such as a spaceship that crash-lands because it is unbalanced.

Experiencing this frustration and being able to repeatedly try and fail is key to building resilience and confidence, as well as problem-solving skills, says Andrew Snape, a learning designer at LEGO Education.

Having solved the problem, the child is then invited to think creatively and invent something new with another set of bricks, such as a building a capsule that can ferry food to Mars. “We wanted something on the end, saying, ‘All right, now you’ve solved the problem. Be a bit creative now and think about what a future problem could be or how you could take this a step further’,” says Snape.

Problem solvers

It also allows parents to step back from their usual role as problem-fixers. One of the most common parent reactions during product testing was, “I just didn’t realise that they were this good,” says Snape. “I didn’t realise they could do this.”

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