Thanks to the inspiring vision of Lois Brink, a landscape architect and mother in Denver, dozens of Colorado elementary schools now have vibrant green spaces where children can explore, play, and soak up all the mental and physical health benefits that come with spending time in nature.
Nature-filled schoolyards - or green schoolyards - provide a wealth of well-documented benefits for children’s health, well-being and learning. Such as from Finland, where spending time in nature at school was even shown to boost childrens' immune system.
A growing number of communities also recognize the role of green schoolyards in supporting climate resilience.
Lois Brink is the brains behind the Learning Landscapes alliance, an initiative that transformed nearly 100 elementary school grounds throughout the Colorado capital from what she called “scorched earth” into green spaces. Along the way, she tracked data on how the renovated schoolyards affected student well-being, the environment, academic performance, and the local economy.
A recent case study on Learning Landscapes found multiple benefits: Student performance increased, transfers decreased, and 1,284 tons of carbon were sequestered each year across all the renovated schoolyards. As for the economic value, the study estimated communities receive a more than $3 return on every $1 invested in green schoolyards.
“School districts are notoriously underfunded,” Priya Cook, the director of green schoolyards and communities at Children & Nature Network, told Grist. “And this is a strategy that benefits all of society.”