A Man-made "Natural Backyard Playground?" What Next?

The NC Natural Sciences Museum just unveiled its new "Natural Backyard Playground" in Raleigh. At a cost of $10,000 this playground features "A new natural play area with tunnels, digging sites and water experiments for young children..." “It’s very much a trend in the natural sciences to have a space like this,” said Emlyn Koster, the museum’s new director. I remember playing in a place like that. It was the large area of woods behind our neighborhood. I would disappear for hours, play in the creek,catch crawfish, imagine a fallen tree was a pirate ship and have sword fights with sticks. Have we gotten to the point where we have to build "natural" places to play so that parents can continue to "helicopter" over their kids? The article quotes one girl's mom as saying “I think it’s everything – in terms of her intellectual development and fostering her curiosity, the natural world is everything.” I guess the natural world is everything, even if its man-made. http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/09/26/3230280/nc-natural-sciences-museum-build.html