nature nurtures - evergreen · nature nurtures: investigating the ... that is both non-bleached and...

Nature Nurtures:Investigating the Potential of School Grounds

Toyota Canada Inc. and its Dealerships – Proudly supporting outdoor classrooms in Canadian schools.Toyota Canada Inc. and its Dealerships – Proudly supporting outdoor classrooms in Canadian schools.

Bringing Nature to our Cities

Bringing Nature to our CitiesBringing Nature to our Cities

Evergreen and Toyota Canada Inc. with its Dealerships are working together to ensure that children’s school environments are as nurturing as possible. The Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds Program represents a commitment to contribute positively to the health andwell-being of future generations by educating children about the importance of restoring and preserving the environment. Teachers, students and community members are invited to participate in a nation-wide effort to reclaim Canada’s school grounds and to createhealthy learning environments.

Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds Charter

The Evergreen and Toyota Canada Inc. partnership represents a shared commitment to positively contribute to the school grounds,environment and emotional and physical development of Canada’s children.

We believe that the provision of educational resources and the support of caring citizens will transform school grounds into healthier, moredynamic places for learning.

We believe that by combining Toyota’s commitment to corporate social responsibility with Evergreen’s ecological restoration practices wewill enhance our combined reach and the quality of business, community and learning.

We commit our organizations to lead by example, and to provide measurable and meaningful resources and support to Canada’s schoolsand to the communities in which we work.

It is our sincere intent to foster a new spirit of community involvement and environmental stewardship within the hearts and minds ofCanada’s future: children and youth.

Geoff Cape, Executive Director, Evergreenwww.evergreen.ca

Yoshio Nakatani, Chairman, Toyota Canada Inc.www.toyota.ca

Published by EvergreenEvergreen is a national non-profit environmental organization with a mandate to bring nature to our cities through naturalization projects.

Credits: Principal writer and researcher: James Raffan, Ph.D. Additionalresearchers: Christine Robertson, M.Ed.; Helen Batten, M.L.A.; Paul Young,B.L.A. Reviewers: Anne Gillain Mauffette, M.Ed.; Rita L. Irwin, Ed.D. ProjectManager: Cam Collyer. Editor: Seana Irvine. Illustrator: Ferruccio Sardella

Copyright © 2000 Evergreen. All rights reserved. Reproductions of smallportions of this book (except photographs) for use in classrooms ornewsletters or for other educational purposes is permitted and encouraged,provided appropriate acknowledgement is given. Photographs within thisbook have been provided for a one-time use only and cannot be re-used forany other purposes.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication DataNature nurtures: investigating the potential of school grounds

(Learning Grounds Tool Shed series) ISBN 0-9681078-5-0

1. School grounds. 2. Natural landscaping — Costs. 3. Environmentaleducation. 4. Outdoor education. I. Evergreen (Association) II. Series

SB56.C3N38 2000 371.6’1 C00-901272-9

This book is printed on 100% recycled paper (including 100% post-con-sumer fibre) that is both non-bleached and non-deinked.

Seeds and Soil of Wisdom

“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge

and wisdom, then the emotions and the impres-

sions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the

seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are

the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions

have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the

excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling

of sympathy, pity, admiration or love — then we

wish for knowledge about the object of our emo-

tional response.”

Rachel Carson, in The Sense of Wonder

What Else Is There?

“TV, bed, TV, school, TV, bed, TV, school, that’s how

it is. We don’t want to become telly addicts, but

what else is there?”

Elementary school student,

in Special Places; Special People

Nature Nurtures: Investigating the Potential of School Grounds

ii

PrefaceNature Nurtures: Investigating the Potential of School Grounds is a comprehensive review of the literaturepertaining to school ground naturalization. Nature Nurtures explores the range of benefits that results when awhole school community participates in improving its school ground. In particular, the benefits of introducingnatural elements such as meadow, woodland or food growing gardens that stimulate both play and learning, areexamined.

This report is the result of a collaborative effort between Evergreen and a team of researchers led by Dr. JamesRaffan. Production was made possible thanks to the generous support of a number of our sponsors andsupporters.

Evergreen commissioned this literature review because we have witnessed the variety and depth of ways thatstudents and entire school communities can be positively influenced when engaged in making improvements totheir school grounds. Our observations have led us to believe that it is not merely the addition of physicalelements such as trees, hills and play structures that improve school grounds, but equally important is theprocess that engages students in the design, building and maintenance of this space.

Nature Nurtures indicates how school grounds are often overlooked and undervalued places at our schools thatdeserve greater attention from school administrations, teachers, parents and the community at large. We hopethis report will aid in the efforts of those who are working toward creating more nurturing and stimulatingoutdoor environments for the generations to come.

Evergreen

A Hill to Roll and Laugh Down

“Somewhere I can sit and share secrets with my

best friend. Somewhere I can walk through moist

grass, look for four-leaf clovers, smell and pick

wildflowers, watch bumblebees and butterflies,

and test a buttercup under my chin. A hill to roll

and laugh down.”

Grade 5 student, Vancouver, B.C.

in The Outdoor Classroom, Issue 2

iii

Table of Contents

SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1A Growing Phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Clarification of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Purpose of This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Structure of Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Historical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Why Focus on School Grounds? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

SECTION 2: THE LITERATURE: A SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Learning Through Landscapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Diversity Is Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4The Importance of Middle Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Children Prefer Naturalized School Grounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Restorative Aspects of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Enhanced Academic Performance and General Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Closing the Achievement Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

SECTION 3: THE BENEFITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Student Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6MORE MEANINGFUL PLAY AND LEARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7SAFER AND LESS HOSTILE OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8MORE GENDER-NEUTRAL PLAY SPACES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9LOWER EXPOSURE TO TOXINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10IMPROVED ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10GREATER PRIDE AND OWNERSHIP IN LEARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10A CHANCE TO PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11CREATION OF SENSE OF PLACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Teacher Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12NEW CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13INCREASED MORALE AND ENTHUSIASM FOR TEACHING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13NEW REASONS TO GO OUTSIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13INCREASED ENGAGEMENT AND ENTHUSIASM FOR LEARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13REDUCED DISCIPLINE AND CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

School Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15REDUCED DISCIPLINARY REFERRALS, ABSENTEEISM AND DROPOUT RATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15REDUCTION OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR ON SCHOOL GROUNDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16BETTER CONNECTIONS TO COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16INCREASED PRIDE IN SCHOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16RESTORATIVE EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17


iv

Table of Contents (cont’d)

Community Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17STRONGER SENSE OF COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17INCREASED COMMUNITY SATISFACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18BANKED SOCIAL CAPITAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18CREATION OF HEALTHY LAND ETHIC/ENVIRONMENTAL CITIZENSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18BETTER COMMUNITY HEALTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT FOR PARENTS IN CHILDREN’S SCHOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19BETTER NATURAL ENVIRONMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19POSSIBLE FINANCIAL SAVINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

THE COSTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

SECTION 4: SAMPLE APPROACHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23The Peace Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23The Owl’s Nest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24The Pond Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25The Learning Playground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

SECTION 5: CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

SECTION 6: BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Introduction

1

Section 1:INTRODUCTION

A Growing PhenomenonIn the year 2000, students, teachers and communitymembers in approximately 10 per cent of Canadianschools are involved in the improvement of schoolgrounds. These improvements may be as simple asplanting annuals outside a classroom window, makingoutdoor seats and building a fire pit for outdoor class-es, or as elaborate as removing asphalt and concretesurfaces, making paths and ponds and plantingdesigns of perennials or native species.

Examples from over 1,000 schools involved to dateinclude the following:• Starting on Earth Day 1991, Alex Hope Elementary

School in Langley, B.C., set out to restore a greenbelt between the school and a main highway, witheach class planting a small cedar tree.

• Runnymede Public School in Toronto created anature study area, choosing native plants thatwould provide food and shelter for the birds.

• Springbank Middle School in Calgary planted awindbreak to make their prairie school ground morehabitable.

• Students at Harry R. Hamilton School in MiddleSackville, Nova Scotia, restored a small pond on theschool property and created a rich, new hands-onlearning space (see Section 4: Sample Approachesfor details of this project).

Clarification of Terms Because many of these projects involve gardening orplanting, a common term used to describe them isschool ground naturalization. However, these projectsare also referred to as school ground development,improvement and/or transformation. The terminologycan be confusing.

This report defines school ground naturalization as thefollowing:

A process involving students, teachers and parents,and often administrators and community volunteers,in the collaborative improvement of school grounds forthe purpose of addressing the healthy physical, social,emotional and intellectual development of students.Central to this process is the creation of more naturalconditions through the introduction of trees, shrubsand wildflowers that are native to the area.

The process is school ground naturalization, eventhough in some cases planting is only a very small partof the project. The product is the creation of a land-scape that has a rich diversity of play and learningopportunities. Indications are that this emerging edu-cational phenomenon has significant educational ben-efits and positive outcomes in areas of child develop-ment and community health.

Purpose of This ReportThe purpose of this report is to examine the researchand writing relevant to the creation of natural anddiverse school grounds and to determine the veracity ofsome of its benefit claims. The report was written withthree objectives in mind: (1) to increase general aware-ness of the attributes of naturalizing school groundsand the importance of the school ground environmentin the context of childhood; (2) to promote andencourage school ground naturalization by evaluatingand documenting the environmental, economic, socialand health benefits that it provides; and (3) to provideschool board administrators, principals, teachers, par-ents and other interested parties with justification forundertaking school ground naturalization projects.

Structure of ReportThis report provides a brief overview of the literatureof school ground naturalization, followed by adetailed consideration of the benefits and costs ofschool ground naturalization. It also includes adescription of four sample projects. The report hasbeen prepared so that both the literature review anddiscussion of benefits sections can be read as stand-alone pieces or as part of the full report. In addition,an annotated bibliography can be found along withthe full report on Evergreen’s Web site in the LearningGrounds section (www.evergreen.ca).


2

OVERVIEW

Historical ContextSchool ground naturalization is rooted in theProgressive Education Movement of the 1930s. As con-ventional public schooling developed from 1850onward, there were always teachers and administratorsdrawn to the philosophies of Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778), Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827)and Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel (1782-1852), whodecried rote learning and the tired conventions ofmanual training schools, believing instead that chil-dren should be free to develop individually. These voic-es were the rallying cry of the Progressive EducationMovement, which was inspired, in its heyday, byAmerican teacher and philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952).

According to Dewey,education worked bestwhen it started withina child’s own experi-ence. He believed thatexperience had to begiven equal billingwith texts and teach-ers and that authori-tarian teaching meth-ods had to be aban-doned for learningthrough experimenta-tion and practice. Heargued that educational experiences that did not gobeyond the simple transmission of knowledge and intothe realm of the overall health of the individual wereof little abiding significance or, worse, “miseducative,”meaning contrary to the greater good of society.Although Progressive Education more or less fizzledout by the Second World War, its ideals have neverdied. Arguably, one of the most persistent contempo-rary echoes of Progressive Education is school groundnaturalization.

Why Focus on School Grounds?The first systematic investigation of school groundnaturalization was a landmark British study conductedbetween September 1986 and May 1989 called theLearning Through Landscapes Project. On the basis ofobservations from hundreds of British schools involvedin school ground naturalization, researchers observeda wide range of outcomes from school ground devel-opment that sounded strikingly similar to the claims ofprogressive educators of the 1930s. But this study alsohighlighted the possible miseducative effects ofexpanses of close-mown grass and asphalt. The austeremessages of conventional school grounds wereobserved to run contrary to classroom outcomes. Thehidden messages of school grounds were a significantforce in children’s educational lives. Eileen Adams,author of the Learning Through Landscapes Report,wrote:

It is evident that young peopleinteract with the whole environ-ment. School grounds function asa setting for the formal and infor-mal curriculum in schools, but alsoas a medium for the transmissionof messages and meanings inher-ent in the hidden curriculum ofschools.…The appearance of theschool grounds… reflect[s] theethos of the school and communi-cate[s] in subtle ways somethingof its attitude to young peopleand the value we place on them(Adams, 1994).

In a two-year follow-up study,conducted by one of the Learning

Through Landscapes researchers, the importance ofthe hidden curriculum of school grounds was crystalclear. Wendy Titman concluded:• School grounds, by their design and the way they

are managed, convey messages and meanings tochildren that influence their attitude and behaviourin a variety of ways.

• Children read these messages and meanings from arange of signifiers, which frame the cultural contextof the environment. This constitutes the HiddenCurriculum of school grounds.

The Things Children Need

“The school and its grounds should be a complete

environment for learning. It should stimulate the

process of child development. The landscape in which

the school stands is important and, at best, can pro-

vide a rich and stimulating resource and setting for

learning and teaching. Financial constraints and tra-

ditional management practices mean that many are,

at worst, close-mown, sterile, windswept spaces or

tarmac expanses making little contribution to the

school curriculum or to the environment in general.”

Eileen Adams, Learning Through Landscapes Report

Overview

3

• The Hidden Curriculum has considerable influence,in a range of subtle but significant ways, on theoperation of all schools.

• It is within the power of those who manage schoolsto determine the nature of the Hidden Curriculumof their school grounds (Titman, 1994).

Recent estimates indicate that Canadian elementaryschool students spend as much as a quarter of theirday on school grounds, assuming 15 to 30 minutesbefore school, 30 minutes for recesses and 30 to 45minutes for lunch (Cheskey, 1996). If students spentlittle time on school grounds, their austere hidden cur-riculum would not be a detrimental force; however,with substantial time outdoors at school, in spacesthat have been compared to prison yards “designedprimarily for surveillance” (Cheskey, 1994), schoolgrounds have definite potential to adversely affectlearning.

Statistics show that conven-tional school grounds also putstudents at physical risk. TheCanadian Hospitals InjuryReporting and PreventionProgram, for example, reportsthat 53,000 children wereinjured on playgrounds inCanada between April 1990and August 1995. Of theseinjuries, 62 per cent occurredin school, daycare or pre-school grounds, and 38 percent occurred in public parks.Nearly 3,000 of these childrenrequired hospital admission.The most common injury: fallsfrom playground equipment onto hard surfaces thatresult in head injuries and broken bones (Mauffette,1999).

Qualitative data generated in the Learning ThroughLandscapes studies indicate that naturalizing schoolgrounds can improve the hidden messages of school

grounds and, by softening the play surfaces, canreduce the incidence of injury as well. But early indi-cations from these British studies are that participa-tion in school ground naturalization projects can havemore far-reaching spinoffs in the areas of overall childhealth.

Section 2:THE LITERATURE: A SUMMARY OF KEYFINDINGSLearning Through LandscapesLearning Through Landscapes (Adams, 1990) and

Special Places; SpecialPeople (Titman, 1994) arethe first documents inwhat is now a continuumof program descriptionsand qualitative studiesthat draws on interviewand observational data.Canadians have con-tributed a number of pub-lications by seasonedpractitioners (Coffey,1994, 1996; Cheskey,1993, 1994, 1996;Reading and Taven, 1996;Aboud and Kock, 1996).Acknowledged as a found-

ing voice, however, is EdithCobb, a researcher who interviewed adults about theirexperiences with nature as children and demonstratedthat vibrant mental health in her subjects was closelylinked to creativity. In her seminal book The Ecology ofImagination in Childhood (1977), Cobb concluded thatcreative expression is rooted in a child’s relationshipwith the complexity, plasticity and manipulability of

The Things Kids Need

“First impressions are really the important impressions,

and if you’re a little kid, you need to understand three

things:

• That you live in a really big city that has joys and

dangers, and that you need to learn about both.

• It is a place where you can make and create your

own community that will fulfill your needs as a

human being.

• It is a place where there is nature. School yards and

schools should reflect the city, the community and

nature.”

David Crombie, former mayor of Toronto

(from Evergreen’s Grounds for Change video)


4

the natural world. Among others to be inspired byCobb’s early work were Roger Hart (1982, 1987, 1987,1988, 1992) and Robin Moore (1986, 1986, 1986, 1989,1989, 1989 and 1996), as well as many of the partici-pants and researchers in the British studies that kick-started the current enthusiasm for school ground natu-ralization. In the best instances, these investigationselevate findings from strictly anecdotal reporting towell-founded conclusions about the costs and benefitsof various types of school ground projects.

Diversity Is KeyA main conclusion arising from Robin Moore’s researchis that school grounds with increased diversity ofchoices for children engender more creative play,which in turn facilitates better social interactions,increased facility with language, better on-the-spotproblem solving and enhanced self-concept. In herrecent book, Sharon Stine further explores the notionof diversity in school grounds, drawing on research ina wide range of learning institutions (preschools, ele-mentary, middle and highschools), and comes to theconclusion that optimal playand learning on schoolgrounds occur when stu-dents are actively involvedin the creation of thesespaces and when there arefeatures that present arange of options for stu-dents. Stine concludes thatlearning grounds shouldhave accessible and inacces-sible areas; places for pas-sive and active play; ele-ments that are risky andothers that are repetitiveand secure; hard and soft surfaces; and natural andbuilt elements (Stine, 1997).

The Importance of Middle ChildhoodRelated writing focuses on the diversity in outdoorlearning spaces created by additional vegetation(Nabhan and Trimble, 1994; Harvey, 1989, 1989;

Sobel, 1996, 1998). David Sobel, for example, studied90 children in England and 125 children in the WestIndies and came to the conclusion that giving childrenthe chance to create private outdoor worlds in middlechildhood (six to 13) builds environmental awareness,sense of place and sense of self in community — allof which extend into adulthood. He writes:

Middle childhood is a critical period in the develop-ment of the self and in the individual’s relationship tothe natural world. By not recognizing the unique bio-logical and psychological characteristics of the indi-vidual during this period, educators fail to provide acurriculum that is optimally attuned to the nature ofthe unfolding self. And it is children’s interest in shap-ing the world, constructing small places for themselvesthat gives us one of the major clues to the nature ofthis period (Sobel, 1993).

Children Prefer Naturalized School GroundsBuilding on Robin Moore’s interest in empiricalresearch on school grounds is a second tier of investi-

gators who are starting togenerate statistical data toadd to the anecdotal andqualitative findings of earlierresearch. MaryAnn Kirkby, forexample, studied a group ofelementary school studentsin a naturalized playgroundand showed a dramatic pref-erence on the part of thesechildren for places of naturalrefuge on school grounds.Her data show that althoughrefuges occupied only 10 percent of the total space of theschool grounds, activity inthese places took up almost

half (47 per cent) of the total time students spent out-side (Kirkby, 1989). This message is implicit in theobservations of many other authors and researchers aswell, detailed later in this report.

Restorative Aspects of NatureResearch in the area of environmental psychology is

High Play Value of Natural Materials

“Natural materials that are alive, ever-changing and

renewing themselves have a very high play value. They

stimulate imagination and fine-muscle coordination

through play with vegetation parts, sticks and dirt.

They engage children in problem solving when making

clubhouses from natural materials. They support large

muscle activities through games like hide-and-go-seek

played among bushes and weeds and in climbing rocks

and trees.…Biotic settings powerfully impact children’s

untarnished senses, stimulating the creation of a world

of fantasy and delight that knows no boundaries of

mind and spirit.”

Robin Moore, “Playgrounds at the Crossroads”

The Literature

5

also relevant to this report. It indicates that proximityto vegetation has a host of benefits. Leading theseinvestigators are Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, who beganinvestigating the psychological benefits of gardeningand moved on to research the restorative aspects ofnature (Kaplan, 1973, 1985; Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989,1990). Related research shows that being in or nearnature (meaning vegetation) can speed recovery frommental fatigue (Hartig et al., 1991), improve health ofinmates in penal institutions (Moore, 1982), speed post-surgical healing (Ulrich, 1984), reduce stress (Ulrich etal., 1991; Ulrich and Parsons, 1992), increase socialinteraction (Coley et al., 1997) and enhance communitysatisfaction (Taylor et al., 1998).

Enhanced Academic Performance andGeneral Health Jacquelyn Alexander showed that school gardeningenhanced academic performance and general well-being of students, increased positive interactions withparents and other adults and inculcated respect for liv-ing things (Alexander et al., 1995). In a study involv-ing 845 children at 21 junior schools in England,Margarete Harvey demonstrated with quantitative datathat experiences in naturalized school grounds boostthe botanical knowledge and environmental attitudesof schoolchildren (Harvey, 1989, 1989). In a relatedstudy in which adults were asked to illustrate and dis-cuss their “healing places,” Anita Olds concluded thatnature was strongly associated with healing in herexperimental group, and that this restorative connec-tion with the outdoors was probably a result of directexperiences with the natural world during childhood.She writes: “…preventing ‘dis-ease’ [sic] by makingnature the child’s playscape is far less costly monetar-ily and emotionally than trying to cure the effects ofsuch deprivation later” (Olds, 1989). These demon-strated connections between nature (plants), positiveenvironmental attitudes and good health are strong.

Closing the Achievement GapTo date, the most comprehensive study with conclu-sions relevant to school ground naturalization is arecent American nationwide exploration of the envi-ronment as an integrated context for learning (EIC).

This study, carried out by the State Education andEnvironment Roundtable, explores the experience ofstudents, teachers and administrators in 40 elemen-tary, middle and secondary schools that include thenatural environment as a curriculum element. Schoolsin this study were not necessarily involved in schoolground naturalization but used nature as a “frameworkfor learning in all areas; general and disciplinaryknowledge; thinking and problem-solving skills; andbasic life skills, such as cooperation and interpersonalcommunications” (Lieberman and Hoody, 1998). Likemuch of the rest of the related research, the EICmethodology was largely based on sound observation-al and interview data. However, the study also pro-duced convincing quantitative data as well through asurvey of more than 100 educators involved in a vari-ety of EIC projects. Fourteen of the schools trackedoverall school performance in standardized test scores.They also administered a Learning Survey to more than100 of the teachers involved. Numerical findings aboutEIC benefits as perceived by these teachers were quitestriking as the following chart illustrates.

Benefits of Using the Environment as an IntegratingContext for Learning

Adapted from Lieberman and Hoody (1998)


6

Further to these survey results, standardized test scoresfor students involved in EIC learning in these schoolsshowed improved performance in reading, math, scienceand social studies. In 92 per cent of comparisons madebetween the academic scores of EIC and non-EIC stu-dents, using both comprehensive and subject-specificstandardized assessments, EIC students outperformednon-EIC students in reading, writing, mathematics, sci-ence and social studies. These are convincing findingsthat speak to the possible power of taking learning out-side of the classroom, but they also highlight the needfor this type of research conducted directly within thecontext of school ground naturalization.As indicated in this brief overview, there is a broadrange of literature pertaining to school ground natu-ralization, from descriptions of existing and proposedprojects to prescriptions for future initiatives, as wellas a variety of investigative research. With the excep-tion of Closing the Achievement Gap, which had strongquantitative evidence for the value of learninggrounds, the bulk of research presently available isanecdotal, qualitative and conducted in non-Canadiancontexts. Nevertheless, this literature does relate toCanadian school ground initiatives, conceptually atleast, and there is good reason to accept that benefitsand costs described or demonstrated in other jurisdic-tions can be applied to projects in Canada. A detailedassessment of benefits and costs follows.

Section 3:THE BENEFITS

Benefits of school ground naturalization have beenorganized in four clusters: student benefits; teacherbenefits; school benefits; and community benefits. Inappreciating these, two points should be kept in mindat all times: (1) all research is context bound, there-fore, making generalizations or assumptions about theuniversal nature of a process on the basis of specificsrecounted in the literature must be done carefully; (2)

benefits tend to flow from one locus to another. Forexample, improved academic performance as a resultof involvement in a school ground naturalization proj-ect on the part of a student, may have direct effectson a teacher’s enthusiasm for teaching, which in turnwill affect the morale of the school, which in turn mayincrease enrollment or enhance public perception ofthe school, which in turn may encourage communitymembers to become involved in school affairs or givethem a heightened sense of community satisfaction.

Student BenefitsResearch shows that the benefits to children arisingfrom the inclusion of nature in their school groundsdiffers depending on the age of the child. For youngchildren, adding natural elements to play spacesimproves the quality of their play. Children are moreinclined to “pretend” when they have lots of differentplaces to stimulate their imaginations. Simply chang-ing from hard play surfaces to soft play surfaces, suchas wood chips or sand, can reduce the severity of dam-age from falls, the leading cause of playground injury.Likewise, the addition of trees or bushes slows downthe speed of travel on a school ground, and this tooreduces injury. But developmentally, there is excellentevidence that the diversity added to playgroundsthrough the process of naturalization improves theintellectual, moral and physical development of youngchildren — benefits that continue as children growolder.

benefits

community

teachers

schools

students

The Benefits

7

It is for children in middle childhood that naturalizedschool grounds have the most significant developmen-tal and educational effects. This is the time in a child’sdevelopment when the full diversity of life and form innature registers, forms patterns, sets priorities andestablishes the building blocks of adult sensibilitiesabout self, others and the world at large. The litera-ture — work by David Sobel and Robin Moore in par-ticular — shows that if there is one time in a child’slife when interacting with nature in a school yard iscrucial, it is middle childhood. In doing so, childrendevelop an appreciation for living things. But the out-door learning of middle childhood is not just aboutnature. This learning is linked to establishing ethicalprinciples, learning to get along with others, under-standing delayed gratificationand building the language andsocial skills to negotiate a placein the world.

For children of high school age,the literature shows that partic-ipation in school ground natu-ralization can mediate funda-mental shifts in orientation toeducation. Getting involved in aschool ground naturalizationproject often means being anactive participant in decisionmaking about the creation,planning and management ofactivities that are tangible. Moving studies from class-room or laboratory to the out-of-doors makes learningmuch more relevant, to the extent that students areinvolved in real problems, with real people, realactions and lasting consequences. The benefits forhigh school students are evident, whether the out-comes are greater pride in and ownership of learning,improved academic performance, positive effects ofworking as equals with new adult role models, or cre-ation of a lasting sense of place.

MORE MEANINGFUL PLAY AND LEARNINGThis benefit of school ground development is derivedlargely from the increased diversity that results from

the inclusion of plants, places and structures ofrefuge, different textures and opportunities for play.Leading this research is Robin Moore (1989), whoemphasizes a child’s right to a diverse environment,stating that the best way to increase outdoor environ-ments for play is to diversify the space, and the bestway to do that is to naturalize.

Taylor et al. (1998) also build on the diversity argu-ment and show a link between creative play, as engen-dered by naturalized outdoor play spaces, and thedevelopment of language. Coming from a slightly dif-ferent angle is Ray Chipeniuk (1994), who develops ananalytical argument for the importance of natural ornaturalized environments as places for children to

develop their own ver-sions of reality. This isalso supported by otherfindings (Adams, 1990;Cheskey, 1996; Cobb,1959, 1997; Dillard,1987; Nabhan andTrimble, 1994; Sobel,1993).

In a related finding,Lieberman and Hoody(1998) report that EIClearning increased theability of students in allgrades to think creative-

ly. It is interesting to link this finding to those ofMoore and others, who argue that naturalized play-grounds increase the amount of creative play. Real-life, real-time interaction with naturalized schoolgrounds seems to provide this benefit no matter whatthe age or developmental state of the learner.

In fact, there are many researchers (Altman andWandersman, 1987; Mauffette, 1999; Kaplan andKaplan, 1989) who demonstrate developmental bene-fits of various kinds. David Uzzell (1988) goes so faras to suggest that “learning” through landscapes is amisnomer and that what goes on in naturalized schoolyards should really be called “development” through

Playgrounds and Imagination

“Any kind of playground which disturbs, or reduces, the

role of imagination and makes the child more passive,

more the recipient of someone else’s imagination, may

look nice, may be clean, may be safe, may be healthy

— but it just cannot satisfy the fundamental need,

which play is all about. And, to put it bluntly, it is a

waste of time and money. Huge abstract sculptured

play lands are just as bad as asphalt playgrounds and

jungle gyms. They are not just sterile; they are useless.

The functions they perform have nothing to do with the

child’s most basic needs.”

Christopher Alexander, architect, A Pattern Language


8

landscapes. Physical development that comes fromoutdoor activity is mentioned throughout the litera-ture, but there is also good indication of cognitive andaffective developmental benefits as well.

Particularly strong is the evidence about the importanceof natural refuges in middle childhood, as introduced byDavid Sobel (1993). And in her study of adults relatingto healing places, Anita Olds shows the importance ofnatural refuges and how the kinds of experiences theyprovide can help children to “achieve a personal cen-tering that is a prerequisite for activity in a socialworld” (Olds, 1989). In another study of adult garden-ers, Mark Francis also indicates that places in childhoodgardens favoured by his informants were the locationsthat were “protected, sheltered or hidden” (1995). Theimportance of refuges is supported by other literatureas well (McAndrew, 1993; Blume, 1996).

Guy (1997) describes the importance of healthy rela-tionships in overall child health, and emphasizes thedevelopment of moral intelligence and how this typeof knowing is a consequence of learning how to bewith others. Case studies of school ground naturaliza-tion have much to say about children interacting witheach other, with teachers and administrators, withparents, community volunteers and local experts. Allof these interactions constitute a potent laboratory for“learning how to be with others,” which helps developwhat some call moral intelligence.

For example, Lieberman and Hoody (1998) detail whatteachers observed about the improvements of inter-personal skills of students in EIC programs. The major-ity of teachers surveyed (70 to 98 per cent) reportedimprovement in the following areas attributed direct-ly to using the environment as an integrated contextfor learning: collaborating on projects with others(this was the highest at 98 per cent); functioningdemocratically; communicating with others; improvedbehaviour and self-discipline (this was the lowest atonly 70 per cent); giving care to self and others; andpractising civility toward others.

Alexander et al. (1995) found moral benefits of schoolgardening as well, including delayed gratification,independence, cooperation, self-esteem, enthusi-asm/anticipation, nurturing living things and expo-sure to role models from different walks of life.Likewise, Mattson (1992), in summarizing the benefitsof horticultural activity as described by practitionersat the Activity Therapy Department at the VermontState Hospital, in Waterbury, Vermont, highlights theimportance of gardening in channelling aggressivebehaviours through physical work, managing impulsivebehaviour through the delayed gratification inherentin gardening, and increasing frustration tolerance inlearning to deal with the unexpected and uncontrol-lable aspects of gardening.

SAFER AND LESS HOSTILE OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENTSRobin Moore (1989) reports that less asphalt onschool grounds means fewer injuries, but his researchalso indicates that the high accident rate on hard sur-faces is due only in part to the unforgiving nature ofthe material (see also Mauffette, 1999). Moore assertsthat hard surfaces also have a psychological andbehavioural effect on students. He suggests thatschool yard fighting and competition could well be anartifact of jockeying for limited resources. Titman(1994) also links the presence of tarmac on schoolgrounds with aggression.

The corollary of this claim is that added diversityincreases resources for learning and thereby reducesaggression, although there is, as yet, very little harddata to quantify this claim. Moore (1989) makes ageneral statement on his lifetime of research that“poor environmental quality goes hand in hand with apoor safety record.” Drawing from his extensive expe-rience in school ground naturalization and from relat-ed studies (Harvey, 1989, 1989; Weinstein andPinciotti, 1988; Moore, 1986; Rivkin, 1995), EdwardCheskey makes a similar general statement that“increasing vegetation complexity and structuraldiversity of school yards reduces incidents of aggres-sion and violence, and promotes positive values”(Cheskey, 1994).

The Benefits

9

An anecdotal report from Ann Coffey (1996), on thebasis of her experience with school grounds in Ottawa,indicates that physical movement on the schoolgrounds is slowed by obstacles such as trees inplanters, paving paintings, movable building objectsand informal seatingarrangements for passivepursuits, and that this“child-calming effect” hascut down the number ofknock-and-bump accidentsin paved playgrounds by 80per cent. Gordon (1994)talks about how plantingmade her prairie schoolground more habitablebecause the trees broke thesearing wind. A generativecorollary here is the findingof Lieberman and Hoody(1998), who report inClosing the Achievement Gap that 93 per cent of teach-ers responding to a Learning Survey agreed that stu-dents acted with more civility toward others after theadoption of EIC approaches.

One of the most instructive pieces of evidence thatschool ground improvement makes a less hostile envi-ronment arises from the simple fact that many schoolshave made “peace gardens” on their grounds. There is,in fact, a long-standing connection between garden-ing and absence of hostility (McKean, 1989), quanti-tatively proven by the work of environmental psychol-ogists such as Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. Throughseveral organizations, including International SchoolPeace Gardens (ISPG), spearheaded by Canadian JuliaMorton-Marr, many schools in Canada and elsewhere inthe world have used gardening for this express pur-pose. ISPG espouses many benefits of making a peacegarden on school grounds (hard evidence of thesebenefits is yet to be posted online, but there is con-vincing anecdotal and descriptive evidence of the ben-efits of peace gardens in John McKean’s 1989 book,Places for Peace). A prominent virtue examined inorganizational literature is the creation of school

peace gardens as a strategy for “managing school bul-lies” (Morton-Marr, 1999). A peace garden atGananoque Secondary School in Gananoque, Ontario, isdescribed in more detail in Section 4: SampleApproaches.

In Our Promise to Children,Kathleen Guy draws from abroad array of recentresearch to conclude thatwhen working with a varietyof adults in a school context— teachers, administrators,community volunteers, par-ents — measurable benefitsaccrue from situating a childwithin a caring community.This, too, as a spinoff ofschool ground development,is linked to less hostile

school experiences for chil-dren. She writes: “Changes may occur in a child’s lifebecause of this caring community, including motiva-tion and self-esteem, increased literacy, reduceddropout rates and reduced rates of school violence.Ultimately, more productive members of society arecreated” (1997).

MORE GENDER-NEUTRAL PLAY SPACESRobin Moore (1989) has shown that traditional play-grounds tend to favour the aggressive and competitivebehaviour of boys, and goes on to make the point thatadding diversity to school grounds can diminish thistendency. Ted Cheskey (1996) discusses his researchfor a video on school ground naturalization, in whichhe learned of the gender bias of traditional playspaces. One of his female informants said, “If only thegirls could have a cubbyhole where we could go andtalk, without the boys hearing us.” The inference con-nects with research into the diversity of naturalizedplay spaces: a variety of children can create a varietyof circumstances for play.

LOWER EXPOSURE TO TOXINSCoffey (1996) reports that shade trees in her study

The Dangers of Hard Surfaces

“Kids are always tripping and falling, hitting their heads

on the concrete and hurting themselves. It’s dangerous

to have just concrete. Kids get bored, so they mess

around a lot, more than they would if they had some-

thing to play with. Kids even smash glass, not because

they’re bad but because they need something to do.

People get hurt. There’s nothing to do on concrete. You

can sit down. You can play jump rope. Maybe you can

play ball, or tag or jacks, but you can’t have fun.”

Comment of an elementary school teacher as

reported by Moore.


10

schools in the Ottawa area reduce children’s risk ofexposure to harmful ultraviolet radiation and help fil-ter dust and pollutants from vehicle exhaust. This is astrictly anecdotal finding that is echoed by work inurban Chicago by members of the Human EnvironmentResearch Laboratory (Taylor etal., 1998; Coley et al., 1997).

Guy (1997) refers to the desir-ability of decreased use ofpesticides and herbicides —many school ground natural-ization projects decrease theamount of turf and therebyreduce the amount of weedkiller that might be required.More to the point, however, is that many naturaliza-tion initiatives are predicated on a healthier relation-ship with nature, an offshoot of which is a philosoph-ical thrust away from chemicals toward natural strate-gies of pest control (Titman, 1994; Coffey, 1996).

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIESInvolving students in school ground development canrequire participation in the planning and organizationof the projects, as well as actual hands-on contribu-tions to the furthering of collaborative designs. Thisshift in perspective and position in the learningprocess can be as simple as a teacher changing from“What do I want my students to know?” as a central,organizing question in lesson planning to “What do Iwant my students to do?” as the place to begin cur-riculum design (Raffan, 1995).

In their EIC research, Lieberman and Hoody (1998)allude to this shift, detailing collateral benefits such ascross-disciplinary instruction; improved thinking andproblem solving; rich hands-on experiences; more com-munity-based learning; and integration of diverse view-points, perspectives and approaches. They concludethat involvement in real-world, project-based activitiesseems to help students refine their abilities in scientif-ic observation, data collection, analysis and formula-tion of conclusions (Lieberman and Hoody, 1998).

IMPROVED ACADEMIC PERFORMANCEMoore (1989) mentions increased academic perform-ance by students involved in school ground transfor-mation efforts — a qualitative inference not support-ed with numerical data. Again, new EIC data provide

strong quantitative evidenceof the same point.

Lieberman and Hoody (1998)report that 14 of the 40schools (including elemen-tary, middle and highschools) in their study of theenvironment as an integratedcontext for learning (EIC)generated quantitative data

on academic achievement, including standardizedtests and grade-point averages. Their finding was thatall of these 14 schools found that quantitative meas-ures of achievement affirm the academic benefits ofEIC-based learning. Specifically, 92 per cent of com-parisons made between the academic scores of EIC andnon-EIC students, using both comprehensive and sub-ject-specific standardized assessments, indicated thatEIC students outperformed non-EIC students in read-ing, writing, mathematics, science and social studies.

At Jackson County Middle School in McKee, Kentucky,for example, students in Grades 7 and 8 who movedinto an EIC program, tracked from 1992 to 1996, reg-istered an average 10 per cent increase over their pre-vious scores in the Kentucky Instructional ResultsInformation System (Lieberman and Hoody, 1998).

GREATER PRIDE AND OWNERSHIP IN LEARNINGLieberman and Hoody (1998) also report that teachersresponding to an EIC Learning Survey said that stu-dents involved in EIC were more likely to display asense of pride and ownership in their work than stu-dents in more traditional school settings — whether itwas restoring wetlands, creating butterfly gardens, orparticipating in environment-based service-learningprojects. This finding is echoed in just about everyother piece of literature. The question, however, is notwhether students develop greater pride and ownership

Pedagogy of Relationships

“Our pressing need now is for a pedagogy that

exposes people to the range of their possible rela-

tionships in the world, and that gives them the lan-

guage and models to explore and express such affil-

iation within a vivid community of values.”

John Elder, Teaching at the Edge

The Benefits

11

in what they are learning as a result of highly experi-ential projects on the grounds of their schools —because evidence shows quite clearly that this is thecase — rather it is which students and under whatkind of learning conditions does this benefit accrue?This question is yet to be answered convincingly. Is itjust the student who would take pride in any kind oflearning, in school or out, or is this a benefit availableto students who have difficulty taking pride in any-thing related to school? These are questions for whichanswers are lacking in the current literature.

A CHANCE TO PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACYHart (1992) develops an eight-step ladder of participa-tion in learning — from manipulation through assig-nation, consultation, allthe way up to the highestform of school involve-ment, which is child-initi-ated activity and the dem-ocratic sharing of decisionmaking with adults. This isa condition that is report-ed in case studies of manysuccessful school groundnaturalization projects,especially those reportedby Adams (1990), Titman(1994) and Stine (1997). Glazer and Glazer talk aboutthe importance of participating in decision making,calling this a “living context” that allows citizens toturn away from trust in experts and bureaucrats and torely more on their own wisdom and sensibilities. If thisargument is extended, the extent to which studentsparticipate in a school ground transformation decisionis a significant measure of overall community health:“...social connectedness, or social capital, is a indica-tor of the health of society, and a powerful predictor ofthe quality of public life” (Glazer and Glazer, 1998).

Wendy Titman confirms, on the basis of her two-yearqualitative study, which followed the Landscapes forLearning initiative in Britain, that the one critical fac-tor in influencing overall school behaviour is activeinvolvement in the planning, execution and care of

naturalized school grounds. “For our research, theactive involvement of children constantly emerged asa critical factor influencing their behaviour and alsotheir attitude, not only in terms of the grounds, but inrelation to themselves and the school as a whole”(Titman, 1994).

BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCESCoffey (1994) reports that in an Ottawa school with alarge multicultural population, school ground natural-ization was a way to create understanding of the rela-tionships between human food needs, organic foodwaste, the land and the complexity of organisms, andto learn about cycles of life, death, decay and regen-

eration — lessons that trans-lated into a broader respect forcultural differences and othercreatures’ needs.

CREATION OF SENSE OFPLACEThere is much anecdotal evi-dence about how outdoor expe-riences build sense of place(Sobel, 1993, 1996; Golley,1998; and many others). WhenWendy Titman writes about

building connections to landscapes in Special Places;Special People, she refers to the totality of the experi-ence of developing a school ground. Working on schoolgrounds affords children the opportunity to learnabout the passage of time through changes in naturethat they can see with their eyes and feel with theirhands. With this work, Titman affirms the findings ofother researchers like John McKean, who talks aboutan experiential process of attaching symbolic meaningto places through plants. McKean gives the example ofplanting a cherry tree on school grounds to mark animportant occasion (McKean, 1989). Robin Moore is ofsimilar conviction when he writes, “…vegetation isone of the most ignored topics in the design of playenvironments…it marks the passing of the seasons,introducing a sense of time into the child’s environ-ment” (Moore, 1989).

The Message of School Grounds

“Children ‘read’ school grounds as they read any exter-

nal environment. They see a set of ‘symbols’ from

which they deduce what it is they are supposed to be

doing or feeling. So a well-tended pond may be read

as an indicator that the school cares, while the total

absence of seating or shelter is likely to suggest that

a school places little value on its pupils.”

Bill Lucas, “Learning through landscapes”


12

As many writers and researchers have concluded, senseof place — based on affect as well as cognition — isthe essential ingredient in environmental literacy,which in turn is the basis of informed environmentalaction (Raffan, 1990; McClaren, 1998). The momentthat creation of good futurecitizens is acknowledged asa desirable educational out-come (as it is in most juris-dictions), building sense ofplace becomes an obliga-tion. The literature showsthat this can only be doneeffectively through first-hand experience in the out-doors. The frighteningaspect of this conclusionhearkens back to the notionof hidden curriculum and theextent to which convention-al unimproved schoolgrounds contribute to place-lessness or, as one authorput it, how schooling taughthim “contempt for the Earth” because of the absenceof nature in his curriculum (Nixon, 1997).

There are many reasons for students to becomeinvolved in school ground improvement projects, butthis final point about building environmental respon-sibility in future citizens is one that should not be lostin the mix of other outcomes. When Calgary teacherTamara Gordon writes about her school ground project,the main benefit that she reports is the creation of“…a group of fiercely devoted student environmental-ists who have pledged themselves to the care and pro-tection of a group of courageous plants” (Gordon,1994).

Teacher BenefitsInvolvement in a school ground naturalization projectinvolves time and energy (Adams, 1990; Berman,1997; Blume, 1996; Chen, 1999; Cheskey and Pearce,1994; Collyer, 1996; Humphries and Rivkin, 1998; Kerrand Harrison, 1996; Knoop, 1996; and Reading and

Taven, 1996). The benefits of this effort, however,accrue from year to year, in the sense that word ofgood teaching spreads, and the new teaching spacethat is created matures and lives on. In every pub-lished teacher’s account of school ground naturaliza-

tion, there is a commonthread: it matters notwhat curriculum applica-tion is made in the out-door context; any topic orsubject can come to lifewhen a teacher moves toenhance the hidden cur-riculum of school grounds.For teachers, moving intothe outdoors necessarilyinvolves shifting from tra-ditional to more experien-tial teaching methods, achange that the literatureshows quite clearly has anabundance of collateralbenefits, not the least ofwhich is often renewed

enthusiasm for the act of teaching (Lieberman andHoody, 1998).

The literature also shows that teachers know the out-doors is a potentially productive learning space butmany are concerned about discipline, safety, control orthe perception on the part of colleagues or adminis-trators that outdoor learning is somehow notrespectable. Although still in the early descriptivestages, first-hand accounts of secondary school expe-riences in outdoor teaching in natural settings indi-cate that these fears are not borne out in reality.Research shows that when students get involved inoutdoor projects, their level of engagement andenthusiasm for learning goes up, not down, and thatthis situation, for teachers, translates into significant-ly reduced discipline and class management problems(Lieberman and Hoody, 1998). Research from environ-mental psychology (Ulrich, 1983; Ulrich et al., 1991;Ulrich and Parsons, 1992) demonstrates that a calmingeffect of vegetation on schoolchildren helps us under-

Kinship with Nature

“Perception and culture-bound values apart, it remains

true that the human body evolved biologically in close

association with nature’s animate and inanimate ele-

ments. Human beings are predisposed in their favour. A

sense of kinship with nature is universal. Children can

easily be taught to appreciate hunting and to develop

a close, if not sentimental, relationship with animals

and growing things. Children the world over seem to

enjoy playing with such basic earth substances as

water, clay and sand; they like to climb trees and slide

down slopes. Nature has few ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ signs post-

ed by adults. It is a relatively unstructured environment

in which children’s carefree vigor can be allowed full

play.”

Vi Fu Tuan, Children and the Environment

The Benefits

13

stand one element of how and why interaction withnature can have such benefits.

NEW CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSCase studies mentioned in Adams (1990), Titman(1994) and Stine (1997) and cross-curricular academ-ic achievement data (Lieberman and Hoody, 1998)demonstrate quite clearly that regardless of subject,unit or topic, school ground transformation projectscan be effectively worked into any and all aspects ofcurriculum. This is a factthat has long beendescribed in the outdoorand experiential educationliterature (Raffan, 1995).For example, in her empiri-cal study of students, teach-ers and parents involved inelementary school garden-ing, Jacquelyn Alexandershares as emblematic ofteachers’ views about gar-dening and curriculum, thefollowing teacher’s words:“My biggest reason [for sup-porting it] is the academicend of it correlates to what I do in all of my subjects”(Alexander et al., 1995).

INCREASED MORALE AND ENTHUSIASM FORTEACHINGData from the EIC study shows that incorporating thenatural environment into lessons increases theengagement of students but also increases teachers’enthusiasm for teaching. Educators reported that as aresult of using EIC approaches, they experiencedincreased engagement in and enthusiasm for teaching;improved interactions with students and colleagues;expanded opportunities for professional developmentand personal growth; greater willingness to use inno-vative instructional strategies; and a noticeablegrowth in the support of their administrators(Lieberman and Hoody, 1998). Edward Cheskey’s obser-vation report of a naturalization initiative improvingoverall staff morale (Cheskey, 1996) affirms this

broadly-based benefit of the creation of learninggrounds.

NEW REASONS TO GO OUTSIDEHarvey (1989) concludes that children’s experienceswith vegetation shape their environmental attitudes,and that transforming school grounds through plant-ing vegetation creates a new set of curricular reasonsto go outside, not the least of which is the students’enthusiasm for going there.

INCREASED ENGAGE-MENT AND ENTHUSIASMFOR LEARNINGOne of the prime benefits ofexperiential teaching meth-ods is increased engage-ment and general enthusi-asm for what is beinglearned (Kraft andKielsmeier, 1995). Why thismight be the case has to dowith relevance of the sub-ject matter to daily lives,the perception on the partof students that what they

are doing has meaning beyond school and that educa-tional pursuits are inherently fun, especially whenthey involve new constellations of people and new lev-els of input on the part of the students in designingtheir learning circumstances. These characteristics ofexperiential learning are reflected in many case stud-ies of school ground transformation. On the basis ofthe congruence between qualities of experiential edu-cation and features of school ground development, itshould come as no surprise that 98 per cent of teach-ers involved in EIC projects (Lieberman and Hoody,1998) reported increased enthusiasm and engagementon the part of their students following the implemen-tation of an EIC program.

REDUCED DISCIPLINE AND CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PROBLEMSDemonstrated student benefits — reduced aggression,improved academic performance, greater pride and

Why the Difference?

“Some environments are thought of as a ‘once and for

all’ task. When the playground is built, we tend to lie

back and say ‘play’ (for the next 10 years). We would

never think of doing this for the inside. We are always

arranging furniture, buying new toys, replacing mate-

rials, inventing new experiences for and with the chil-

dren, preparing surprises. We need to use the same

creativity, energy, planning time and money for the

outdoors.”

Anne Gillian Mauffette,

Revisiting Children’s Outdoor Environments


14

ownership in learning — appear to combine with theparticipation of a teacher to reduce discipline andclassroom management problems. Although this is notclearly documented or articu-lated in the literature,extrapolation from existingaccounts leads to the con-clusion that just asimprovement projects adddiversity to school grounds,these initiatives also adddiversity to schooling,meaning that students whoare bored by one type ofactivity might be engagedby another. And just asRobin Moore has arguedthat lack of diversity on tra-ditional asphalt and grassschool grounds may in fact be a cause of aggressionand antisocial behaviour, one might argue after read-ing the available case studies, that a lack of curriculardiversity may have exactly the same effect in the areaof class management. This point, however, remains tobe established with solid data. The one point that isamply proven in the litera-ture is that if a schoolground improvement proj-ect involves the planting oftrees, bushes or other vege-tation, then it will likelyhave a “child calming”effect on students (Coffey,1996; Ulrich et al., 1991).

School BenefitsAt the school level, the benefits of school ground nat-uralization begin with the creation of a living contextfor learning, which can be used to create a variety ofnew curriculum connections but which has also beenshown to enrich the overall ethos of the school.Naturalized school grounds are safer and less violentthan conventional expanses of grass and asphalt, butchanges in individuals have resulted in significantlyreduced indexes of social pathology at schools, includ-

ing disciplinary referrals, absenteeism, truancy anddropping out. These benefits, combined with increasedschool pride and increased staff and student morale,

can transform a school.

Although evidence is scantyabout the movement of ben-efits up the administrativeline to include school gover-nance or political influenceon curriculum design, Adams(1990) and Titman (1994) inthe European context andCheskey (1993, 1994, 1996)Coffey (1994, 1996) andCollyer (1996, 1999) in theCanadian context create areasonable expectation that

benefits observed at theschool level eventually register at school board leveland have effects on curriculum design at governmen-tal levels. Although politicians often speak of educa-tion as a shared community responsibility, often theschool and its community are worlds apart. Likewise,the transfer of curriculum from government to gover-

nance council to classroom,from education ministry toboard of education to schooladministration, from bureau-crat to board member toteacher, is often seen as animposition from on high.School ground transforma-tion projects, which often

include students, teachers,principals, board personnel, parents and communitymembers, appear to have the potential to reverse thistrend.

When school grounds are shared spaces, they becomephysical connecting zones, places for overlap betweencommunity and school. Evidence in the literatureshows that when this physical connection occurs,other types of connections occur as well. Informationbegins to flow through this zone of overlap, strength-

Belonging and Ownership Make a Difference

“It has been well documented that environmental

improvement leads to positive changes in behaviour

patterns. Students involved in the planning and care

of school improvement projects experience an

increased sense of belonging, a sense of ownership.

Aggression, vandalism, litter and graffiti are all less

likely and less tolerated in a school community where

everyone is cooperating to create and sustain an

enjoyable environment.”

Ann Coffey, Green School Project, Ottawa

A Good Idea

“The school ground naturalization movement is perhaps

the strongest and most vibrant of all the school green-

ing efforts currently under way on this continent.”

Tim Grant, co-editor, Green Teacher, Issue 47

The Benefits

15

ening connections between teacher and administrator,between school and board, between board and gov-ernment — connections that can result in new think-ing about the nature of curriculum (formal, informaland hidden) and about the real meaning of educationas a collaborative venture. The most convincing evi-dence of this in the literature to date is contained inLearning Through Landscapes (Adam, 1990) and SpecialPlaces; Special People (Titman, 1994).

Perhaps the most significant way in which schoolsbecome beneficiaries of thecreation of learning grounds isthrough new and positive con-nections to the communitiesof which they are a part. Whenprojects work, they ofteninvolve experts, parentsand/or volunteers from thelocal community. These adultsenrich the learning environ-ment for students but also make a human link betweenschools and communities. Case studies (Stine, 1997)indicate that in many cases these links translate toimproved relations between school and community,and when problems do arise that create friction, thesocial capital banked through the process of collabo-ration on a naturalization project makes a differencein the amicable and expeditious resolution ofschool/community issues. What follows is a summaryof individual benefits to schools.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONSIn writing about the ways in which neighbourhood andcommunity environments are established, environmen-tal psychologists Altman and Wandersman concludethat “Where we live is a statement of who we are”(1987). Adams (1990) and Titman (1994) proved quiteconvincingly that the hidden curriculum of schoolgrounds exists, and they further demonstrated that ifthese messages contradict the formal (teacher-con-trolled) curriculum of the school, then a degenerativesituation exists. Adams suggests that naturalizingschool grounds can allow the formal, informal and hid-den curricula of schools to be seen as “…part of the

continuum of learning experience inside and outsidethe classroom, a means of ensuring educational oppor-tunity through the extension of the learning environ-ment out of the school building into the sunshineclassroom, the outdoor laboratory or nature reserve”(1990).

Drawing on the literature of environmental educationand environmental literacy, Bogner (1998) shows thatshort-term outdoor ecology education has effects onstudents’ environmental perspectives but suggests

that “…training in envi-ronmental citizenship iswithout doubt as complexa procedure as it is a long-term one.” Referring to the“foot-in-the-door” effectof short-duration outdooreducation, he concludesthat to translate this

knowledge into effectiveenvironmental citizenship, sustained exposure to thenatural environment is required, as in regular classesin a naturalized school ground. And while this soundslike a connection to the science curriculum, demon-strated developmental, social and behavioural out-comes of student activity in naturalized schoolgrounds produce benefits across the entire curriculum.Harvey (1989) makes a complementary finding.

REDUCED DISCIPLINARY REFERRALS, ABSEN-TEEISM AND DROPOUT RATESAnecdotal reports from Coffey (1996) affirm a decreasein absenteeism and dropout rates in schools with nat-uralized grounds. In another anecdotal reference,Collyer (1996) reports that creation of learninggrounds increased school enrolment at a Toronto ele-mentary school, because naturalization increased theattractiveness of the school to prospective studentsand parents. Kathleen Guy concludes that when homeand school create a caring and supportive communitythat surrounds a child, this has measurable benefits,one of which is reduced dropout rates (Guy, 1997). The only quantitative data supporting this factorcomes from the EIC study, which records impressive

A Box Called “Classroom”

“Using the real world is the way learning has happened

for 99.9 per cent of human existence. Only in the last

100 years have we put it in a little box called a class-

room.”

Gerald Lieberman, coauthor of

Closing the Achievement Gap


16

improvements in student behaviour at HotchkissElementary School, in Dallas, Texas. During the firstthree years of a new EIC project, disciplinary referralstotalled 560 in the first year, 160 in the second yearand only 50 in the third year, tracked from 1994 to1997. This constituted a 91 per cent decrease in dis-ciplinary referrals (Lieberman and Hoody, 1998). Thisfinding was echoed in other EIC schools, although notwith such dramatic numbers.

REDUCTION OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR ONSCHOOL GROUNDSIn addition to research reported under student bene-fits, such as Ann Coffey’s findings that school groundnaturalization resulted in reduced antisocial behaviour(i.e. aggression), physical speed of play in the schoolground, knock-and-bumpaccidents, absenteeism anddropout rates, there is otherevidence from the HumanEnvironment ResearchLaboratory (ACES, 1999). Intreed public housing devel-opments in Chicago therewas decreased incidence ofviolence and increased per-ception of safety comparedwith untreed developments.Coffey has also noticed inher own experience thatduring periods of schoolgardening, there is less juve-nile delinquency in the schools where she works(Coffey, 1996), a finding that is mirrored in anAmerican study, which reported that each year sincethe establishment of school ground gardens atRaymond, DuSable and Austin schools in ghetto areasof Chicago, “…the number of broken windows in theschool has been reduced” (Lewis, 1992).

Zeisel (reported in Titman, 1994) concludes that muchof the damage sustained by schools is caused by lackof recognition of the need to plan and design for theinformal and social needs of the users, as well as forformal educational needs. The message here, of course,

is that including students in the care of schoolgrounds increases their understanding of space plan-ning and decreases their urge to vandalize.Environmental psychologist David Uzzell, for example,explains how this might work. Using Newman’s Theoryof Defensible Space, Uzzell argues that opening schoolgrounds to community use makes these semi-publicspaces better known, and encourages a “high degreeof social responsibility and personal safety,” which inturn are community forces that curb vandalism (Uzzell,1988).

BETTER CONNECTIONS TO COMMUNITYThe school grounds as a zone of productive overlapbetween school and community is implied in much ofthe British research and elsewhere as well. Marietta

Stonehouse-Kish (1994), forexample, concludes thatincluding local experts in aschool ground naturaliza-tion project at her school inMillgrove, Ontario, not onlyenhanced her students’learning experience butstrengthened ties to thecommunity as well. Formore details about theMillgrove project, seeSection 4: SampleApproaches. Similarschool/community ties were

reported by Charles Lewis ina paper entitled “Effects of Plants and Gardening inCreating Interpersonal and Community Well-Being.”Lewis quotes a college president from upstate NewYork who said, “The Class Trees planted on campus notonly provide beauty for the beholder, they also createa link to alumni who enjoy a return to Vassar in partto see their particular trees” (Lewis, 1992).

INCREASED PRIDE IN SCHOOLThroughout Robin Moore’s research (1989), in much ofthe British experience and in case studies like those inStine (1997), emerges a tremendous sense of pride onthe part of students who have been involved in vari-

The Sound of Falling Water

“All in all, it was a marvellous project. Somehow the

pond softened the contours of the school, providing a

refuge area for people as well as wild things. For some

special education kids, the pond is the main reason

they come to school...an Attention Deficit Disorder

boy from my room wrote in the pond journal, ‘I was

feeling nervous today, and I didn’t want to be in

school, but in here the sound of the waterfall makes

me feel good.’”

Jonathon Pope, Grade 4/5/6 teacher, from Clearing,

Issue 100

The Benefits

17

ous school ground naturalization projects. Althoughthis is not a stated curriculum goal in very many juris-dictions, this literature leaves one with the conclusionthat pride in accomplishment, pride in collectiveaction, pride in nurturing living things and pride inmaking something for the collective good is a notice-able benefit when school yards are transformed intolearning grounds.

RESTORATIVE EXPERIENCEFrancis (1995) summarizes the research of otherresearchers such as the Kaplans (1990) and RogerUlrich (1993) to make the point that plants and vege-tation play a significant role in the creation of restora-tive experiences of adults, but then goes on to saythat this connection between nature and people inadulthood is predicated on connection to nature aschildren. McAndrew (1993), drawing from Kaplan(1973, 1985) and Kaplan and Kaplan (1989, 1990),concludes that “research confirms that the nature oneexperiences need not bespectacular — even the mostcommon instances of nature,such as an ordinary tree or asmall piece of open land, canbe quite satisfying.” Hartig etal. (1991) conducted a seriesof experiments to explore therestorative aspects of natureand determined that inducedcognitive fatigue was bestoffset by a peaceful naturewalk, moreso than by walks in an urban setting or aperiod of relaxation in a comfortable chair. The pointhere is that personal connection with nature is goodfor the soul, and that happy souls make good studentsand exemplary citizens.

Community BenefitsThere is much research into the benefits of “greening”communities through the planting of trees and thecreation of areas of natural refuge. There is not a lotof research yet on the community effect of schoolground naturalization in particular. But what the gen-eral literature shows is quite convincing: increased

naturalization of a community and more communityinvolvement in planning and creation of these spacesmeans a stronger sense of community and higher lev-els of community satisfaction.

And just as there are benefits for students’ and teach-ers’ general health, both mental and physical, frominteraction with natural spaces, the restorative aspectof nature can have similar effects on the overall healthof a community. Just as potted plants in offices havebeen shown to improve the social context of a work-ing environment (Ulrich and Parsons, 1992), and gar-dening has been demonstrated to have a multitude ofhealth benefits (Berman, 1997; Francis, 1995;Heffernan, 1994; Kaplan, 1973; Lewis, 1990; andToronto Board of Education, 1997), so too does natu-ralizing a school ground. And when school grounds areconsidered in the full constellation of green spaces ina community, this network of natural connections hasbeen shown to measurably affect the overall health of

a community (Taylor et al.,1998). For example,research shows that peoplelove the presence of greenspace in a community butthey will only walk threeminutes to access it. Ifmore schools naturalizetheir grounds there will beless distance between greenspaces in a communitywhich, in turn, results in

more people taking the three-minute walk to enjoy thenatural environment down their street.

STRONGER SENSE OF COMMUNITYThe Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences(ACES) Team at the Human Environment Research Lab(1999) has studied the effect of trees and greenspaces in urban Chicago and concludes that, on thebasis of self-reports by residents, neighbourhoods inChicago housing developments with more trees have astronger sense of community than those with fewertrees. Vegetation invites people to dwell outdoors(shade and shelter), which in turn adds a feeling of

A Better Place to Live

“This gave students a chance to be part of the commu-

nity — to see that they have a part to play in making

their community a better place to live. Even the reluc-

tant students wanted to do more after their first expe-

rience.”

High school teacher, from Glenforest Secondary

School, in The Outdoor Classroom, Issue 4


18

safety to the space; that translates into communica-tion and that, in turn, to a heightened sense of com-munity. In another study, Coley et al. (1997) reportsthat trees promote increased opportunities for socialinteractions as well as better monitoring of outdoorareas and supervision of children in impoverishedurban neighbourhoods. Taylor, Wiley, Kuo and Sullivan(1998) report that Chicago’s green spaces attractadults as well as children, and that children in natu-ralized spaces tend to get more access to adults, whichmay also contribute to a sense of community.

INCREASED COMMUNITY SATISFACTIONCommunity satisfaction — the extent to which resi-dents feel settled where they live — is linked to thepresence of nature, particularly trees and gardens.Rachel Kaplan, for example, found that for multiple-family housing at nine sites in Michigan, the mostimportant factors in neighbourhood satisfaction werethe availability of nearby trees, well-landscapedgrounds and places for taking walks (Kaplan, 1985). Togive some sense of where this effect of vegetationmight fit in with whether or not people are happyabout where they live, Fried (1982) shows in a ques-tionnaire study that community satisfaction wasranked as more important than marital or work satis-faction as elements of overall satisfaction with life.

BANKED SOCIAL CAPITALSocial capital, or the willingness and capacity to workfor the collective good of a community, also appearsin this literature as a collateral benefit of schoolground naturalization. Olds (1989) identified theimportance of natural refuges in formative outdoorexperiences and concluded that these kinds of experi-ences can help children to “…achieve a personal cen-tering that is a prerequisite for activity in a socialworld.”

This is a benefit that appears to have its genesis inshifting the power base of decision making in schoolfrom teacher control toward student control. Glazerand Glazer (1998) identify participation in decisionmaking as a key to banking social capital, calling thisa “living context” that allows citizens to turn away

from trust in experts and bureaucrats and instead torely more on their own wisdom and sensibilities. Thesesocial environmentalists conclude that the extent towhich people do this is a significant measure of com-munity health: “…social connectedness, or social cap-ital, is an indicator of the health of society, and apowerful predictor of the quality of public life” (Glazerand Glazer, 1998). This finding is echoed in OurPromise to Children (Guy, 1997).

The most convincing evidence of the building of socialcapital from school ground development projectscomes from Closing the Achievement Gap. Drawing fromobservations at 40 schools, researchers found thatthese learning opportunities help students betterunderstand political decision making. They concludethat “These projects encourage students to becomeinvolved…and to be active, contributing citizens andadults” (Lieberman and Hoody, 1997).

CREATION OF HEALTHY LAND ETHIC/ENVIRONMENTAL CITIZENSHIP

Aldo Leopold, the renowned writer and ecologist,asserts that “…the most serious obstacle impedingthe evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our edu-cation and economic system is headed away from,rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land.Your true modern is separated from the land by manymiddlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets”(Leopold, 1949). If there is a resounding chorus in theliterature of school ground naturalization, it is thatthese educational efforts remove the “middlemen” andput children into direct contact with nature.

McClaren is convinced of the importance of hands-onexperiences with nature and their necessity forinformed environmental decision making. He calls fora balance between study in virtual worlds (he includestexts in this category) and study in the “unrendered”worlds of real plants, animals and people. He writes:“By contributing to the store of information about theenvironment and struggling to make meaning of it,and by deciding what needs to be done, studentsbecome part of [an] important cultural conversation.To exclude them is to diminish the ultimate task of

The Benefits

19

schools and other forms of education of the young —namely preparation for full, responsible adult member-ship in society” (1998). Rivkin (1995) concludes onthe basis of her research that “…for the long-termconservation of the world…children need a strongbase of first-hand knowledge.”

Convincing evidence of this comes from studies ofenvironmental activists (Glazer and Glazer, 1998;Bunting and Cousins, 1983;and Chawla, 1986), whichshows quite clearly that it ischildhood experiences withnature — middle childhoodexperiences to be precise —that make the difference.

BETTER COMMUNITYHEALTHAlthough any kind of empiri-cally demonstrated causalrelationship between schoolground naturalization and community health has yetto be determined, research into the restorative powersof nature (Hartig et al., 1991; Ulrich, 1983; Moore,1982; and Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989) provides ade-quate reason to expect that there is a correlation. E.O.Moore’s work in prisons (Moore, 1982) and RogerUlrich’s work in hospitals (Ulrich, 1984), all of theresearch into the health benefits of gardening(Kaplan, 1973, 1985; Lewis, 1990, 1992, 1994), andAnita Olds’ contention that exposure to natural out-door light is linked to good health — all of these find-ings make believable Olds’ conclusion that the bene-fits of naturalized school grounds far outweigh thecosts of trying to cure the effects of deprivation lateron (Olds, 1989). Quantitative data, however, is need-ed to confirm this.

ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT FOR PARENTS IN CHILDREN’S SCHOOLAlexander reports from her empirical study of the par-ents of 52 school gardeners that “Parents became moreactively involved with school matters and their chil-dren’s experiences at school. [As a result of this

involvement] children were found to have a sense ofbeing part of a larger community, as they and theirfamilies found satisfaction from caring for gardens onweekends” (Alexander et al., 1995). Like many of thebenefits, this spinoff of school ground naturalizationaffects everyone involved, and in largely intangibleways. Issues like well-being are difficult to measure.Again, more research in this area is needed to clarifythe size and significance of this particular community

benefit.

BETTER NATURAL ENVIRONMENTCheskey (1994) talks abouthow planting decreasesrunoff. Alexander (1997)shows from his researchthat people enjoy greenspace but that they will notwalk more than three min-utes to access it. More nat-uralized school yards means

more green spaces for public use, which means morepeople will get out into nature and reap the demon-strated benefits of this kind of interaction. Work inurban settings by researchers at the HumanEnvironment Research Laboratory (ACES, 1999) men-tion a wide variety of benefits to the environmentalconditions of communities when trees are added tocityscapes, including reduced storm runoff, increasedshade in the summer, better air to breathe and higherlevels of community satisfaction.

POSSIBLE FINANCIAL SAVINGSAdams (1990) estimates that school ground mainte-nance represents 20 per cent of the annual mainte-nance costs of school sites and buildings. Withreduced outdoor areas to maintain (smaller amount ofgrass to cut, fewer areas for snow clearing), savingscould be realized, but there is really no specific evi-dence in the literature, just conjecture by participantsin various research projects such as Learning ThroughLandscapes.School ground transformation often results in thesharing, or the potential total shift, of responsibility

Place and Everyday Life

“Environmental literacy lies at the heart of understand-

ing the places with which we are familiar, and thus at

the heart of the issue of identity. It is necessary for

people who live in and use urban places, indeed places

of any kind, to know the environment around them. An

awareness of place can only be enhanced when it

becomes a part of people’s everyday lives.”

Michael Hough, Out of Place


20

for at least some school ground maintenance. Thesharing and shifting go from the custodial staff of aschool to the teaching staff and students, providedthat union-specified work roles can be clarified. Whenadded to the demonstrated reductions in littering andvandalism when students get involved and take own-ership of aspects of school ground maintenance, thesesavings can be noticeable.

One of the biggest possible financial benefits, identi-fied but not quantified, is in the area of improvedhuman health. The restora-tive powers of nature,improved school morale,general enhancement ofmental and physical healthare all elements that couldbe investigated as a sourceof significant savings inhealth care costs, schoolemployee absenteeism andsick leave, as well as reduc-tion of school ground acci-dents. At best, research inthis area would be based onextrapolation from varioustypes of empirical data. But,as yet, the studies have notbeen done.

The Canadian Hospital Injury Reporting and PreventionProgram, as cited in Mauffette (1998) is an example ofthe type of data that could eventually help researchersassign numbers to the financial savings in the area ofhuman health. If, as is expected, naturalization ofschool grounds has similar benefits to greening initia-tives elsewhere in communities, the potential for sav-ings is excellent. A Human Environment ResearchLaboratory report concludes “…trees have the potentialto reduce social service budgets, decrease police callsfor domestic violence, strengthen urban communities,decrease incidence of child abuse” (ACES 1999:2).

And finally, it is useful to remember that as with othersmall-scale changes in any large system, cumulative

effects must be taken into account as well. While thereis no specific data concerning school ground natural-ization, the following example of the effect of treeselsewhere gives real indication that substantial sav-ings are possible. In the City of Milwaukee, engineersestimate that trees in full summer canopy reduce theflow of storm water by 22 per cent and, as such, savethe municipality the estimated $15.4 million it wouldtake to build storm water retention capacity for thisamount of flood water. In a somewhat related finding,Moll and Young (1992) present an anecdotal finding

that naturalizing schoolgrounds reduces by meas-urable amounts the energyand water used for lawnmaintenance, builds waterretention capacity onschool property, improvesair quality and even mod-erates the local microcli-mate. These findingswould also be muchstronger with quantitativedata to back them up.

THE COSTS

The literature of school ground development has verylittle to say as yet about the costs associated with thisactivity, financial and otherwise. Financially, trans-forming school grounds can result in savings in serv-ices such as grass cutting, weed control and snowremoval. While savings might be realized in schoolmaintenance costs, more often school ground transfor-mation might simply result in the reallocation of fundswith no net new expenditures or savings, dependingon the type of development project undertaken.

As for the costs of materials, labour and machinery, itis important to point out that the cost of school

Mission: To Find and Create Private Worlds

“Education in harmony with development should, among

other things, create adults with both a sense of individ-

ual initiative and a sense of responsibility to the natu-

ral and social worlds. How do we accomplish this? One

small way we can help is to acknowledge, in our educa-

tion, the world-making tendencies of the individual. In

middle childhood this means allowing the child to find

and create private worlds. If we allow children to shape

their own small worlds in childhood, they will grow up

knowing and feeling that they can participate in shap-

ing the big world tomorrow.”

David Sobel, Children’s Special Places

The Costs

21

ground naturalization is typically not borne entirelyby the school. These projects tend to be incremental(meaning funding is raised as required to realize thesteps of a plan in sequence) and the money tends tocome from outside sources as well as from school cof-fers.

The perception of funding agencies is that schoolground naturalization projects tend to deliver excel-lent value (Adams, 1990; Titman, 1994). Keeping inmind that benefits flow through a chain of influencefrom the school ground through students, teachers,school, community and beyond, it is possible to imag-ine that a dollar spent on planting one tree outside akindergarten room in an urban setting would have ahost of dividends.

As for other costs — some mightthink of these as “negative bene-fits” — they are mentioned in theliterature, but as often as they arementioned, there is invariably anassertion or research finding thatcounterbalances. Part of the reasonfor the existence of this rosy pic-ture is the fact that people involvedin school ground transformation seem not to bemoved to write about the drawbacks of this activity.Researchers who have interviewed adult participantshave revealed a few glimmers of cost but, again,without data to support the claims, these seem triv-ial bordering on insignificant. Worry about pollen andallergies in the outdoors is mentioned in a couple ofplaces, but one is likely to find much more data inenvironmental science literature about “sick buildingsyndrome” and the indoor allergens. Without ques-tion, being outdoors exposes students to a host ofairborne and surface toxins, but with prudent appli-cation of safety practices already in place, this riskcan be reduced to completely acceptable levels.

Several authors mention teacher time as a significantcost of school ground development (Alexander et al.,1995; Dankert in Nixon, 1997; Collyer, 1996;Simmons, 1998). It is a problem, of course, if one

teacher takes on a project and it becomes dependenton that person’s energy alone — especially if theteacher in question moves or is transferred to anoth-er school. Likewise, a problem can emerge if demandson teacher time are increased or intensified due tocurriculum or administrative changes, leaving lesstime for tending to the school ground project.Although there is no hard data about the amount oftime teachers spend on their outdoor projects, the lit-erature indicates that these are labours of love (i.e.happy combinations of work and play) for students,teachers, administrators and community members,who freely give their time. It is likely, however, thatregardless of the benefits, the creation of learninggrounds adds time pressure to already busy lives.

Maintenance of schoolground projects is also apotential cost or problem,although only one men-tion of this was found inthe literature (Pope,1998). During the summermonths, when studentsand teachers are away

from the school, therealways seem to be questions about who will water theplants. The Gananoque Secondary School PeaceGarden (see Section 4: Sample Approaches) solvedthis problem the way that many schools evidently do,and that was by setting up a roster of students, par-ents, community members and school summer main-tenance staff living nearby to do the necessary weed-ing and watering. All schools have groundskeepersassigned to do maintenance throughout the year, whowill likely be at the school anyway through the sum-mer months, and whose help has been enlisted onoccasion, as described in the case study literature(Stine, 1997).

The case study literature distinguishes betweenpreschools and private schools, which are open 12months a year, and public schools, which are usuallyactive for only 10 months out of 12. Year-roundschools have a much wider range of options available

Difficult but Good

“It may be harder, but I wouldn’t give it up for

anything.”

A common comment from teachers about

environment as an integrated context for learn-

ing, as reported in Closing the Achievement Gap


22

for planting, largely because of the steady availabili-ty of people to perform routine maintenance tasks.With vegetable gardens, for example, which are tradi-tionally planted in the late spring for summer harvest,there is a problem of waste if no one is there to pickthe produce when it is ripe. Many schools have over-come this problem by planting early and late-harvestvarieties, which provide both summer and fall pro-duce, available for distribution to the community viastudents. One teacher in the Toronto area, DagmarBauer (Collyer, 1996), mentions the problem of waste,explaining that she writes off the vegetables — shedigs what’s left into the garden in September — andthinks of it as a “sacrifice” in the name of the othervirtues wrought in her students lives by the experi-ence of gardening. For Bauer, the principle benefit ofgardening is not product, but process. As with manyschool ground naturalization projects, the learning isin the doing.

Additional costs of school ground development aremore or less absent in the written record. Uzzell (1988)suggests that for many children from urban back-grounds, the natural environment is a source of fear.Available case study data indicate that this is not thecase, at least if urban nature means naturalized schoolgrounds. Again, the fact remains that this possible costhas been identified but not quantified. One piece ofrelated anecdotal data, from an early study thatobserved inner-city children who daily coped with thedangers inherent in their home turf, provides an indi-cation that the fear hypothesis may have something toit. The tough inner-city children were brought to apatch of woodland and were terrified of the threatsthat might be lurking there. For these children, thewoodland was an alien world, leading the researchteam to suggest that school gardening might be apreferable way to connect urban children to therestorative powers of nature.

Sample Approaches

23

Section 4:SAMPLE APPROACHES

Project: The Peace GardenSchool: Gananoque Secondary School (G.S.S.),

Upper Canada Board of EducationAddress: Gananoque, OntarioStudents: 20 to 30 high school students from a

total enrolment of 800Setting: Suburban (small town)

Project Overview: Perennial beds, paths, benches and shade trees set in an 80-metre-square quadrangle at the rearof the school. Before improvements, the ground was covered with grass bisected by an asphalt delivery accessway and apron outside the school cafeteria. Actual working area of first phase of Peace Garden is about 25 by25 metres. Further improvements planned.

Date HighlightsMarch 1995: • Idea emerges from English class looking out onto the gradrangle.

• Permissions secured from principal and board maintenance supervisor. April 1995: • On Earth Day, students in English class and school outdoors club lift sod.

• A photo and caption make the local paper.• Local nursery owner offers to help; topsoil arrives.

May 1995 • Free wood chips from local power company are delivered for paths.• Perennial plants arrive from parents, teachers, community gardeners.• Under the headline “Peace Garden Is School Effort,” the project is featured again in the

local paper, this time with big photo and three-column story.September 1995 • Coordinating teacher’s essay wins the makings of a tulip garden from contest held by

Canadian Living magazine and other sponsors.October 1995 • 400 tulip bulbs are planted in a new bed adjacent to the existing Peace Garden. Event

draws many dignitaries and is covered beforehand and after in local newspaper, as wellas by regional radio and television stations.

1996-1998 • Use of garden by different classes increases.October 1998 • Peace Garden coordinator helps nearby elementary school to start a Peace Garden.February 1999 • University students make and donate cedar benches to the Peace Garden.April 1999 • G.S.S. student is killed in a car accident; other students decide to honour him with two

memorial benches in the Peace Garden.June 1999 • Student council organizes talent show and silent auction and raises $1,200, which is

donated to the Peace Garden.• Retiring teacher makes $500 donation to Peace Garden.

September 1999 • Local landscaping contractor installs limestone paths for the cost of materials.

Connections Through Experience in Nature

“[School ground naturalization] has become synony-

mous with a movement that has reasserted the value

of experiential learning outdoors, the power of land-

scape and the need to reconnect a generation of

young people to the soil, to share with them the

value of growing things.”

Bill Lucas, “Grounds for change:

Learning through landscapes in Britain”


24

Summary: This project began with an idea that germinated in one English class. It was facilitated by a teacherwith an interest in gardening but was driven by the students’ energy. The project was collectively nurtured by arevolving group of teachers, students, parents and interested community members. The idea drew interest fromall quarters: from the people who made unsolicited contributions of advice, labour, money and/or plant materi-al, to the cafeteria cook who used herbs grown by students to add Peace Garden Soup to the G.S.S. lunch menu,to the members of the student council who organized a coffee house and silent auction of student services —piano lessons, wood cutting, tutoring, art lessons, catered picnics — which were auctioned to raise money forthe Peace Garden. Coordinating teacher Gail Simmons remarked, “The Peace Garden brings the best out of peo-ple.”

Project: The Owl’s NestSchool: Altadore Elementary School,

Calgary Board of EducationAddress: Calgary, AlbertaStudents: K to 6Setting: Urban

Project Overview: This was a project to offer students, teachers and the community learning opportunities throughthe restoration and integration of a natural habitat within an urban setting. Over a two-year period, a total of637 plants found a new home at Altadore, including 70 species of flowers and grasses, 23 species of shrubs andthree species of trees native to southern Alberta. Other features of the project include pathways, rocks, a story-telling stone, a weather station, bird nesting boxes and feeders, compost bins, a log pile, a butterfly house, birdbaths and stumps.

Date HighlightsFall 1996 • Research, proposal writing, fundraising and planning phase.April 1997 • Award of Excellence in School Ground Naturalization from Evergreen for outdoor classroom

plan.Winter 1998 • Honourable Mention, National Wildlife Week Awards Program, Canadian Wildlife

Federation.May 1998 • Ground-breaking event.June 1998 • First planting.Fall 1998 • Project placed on hold as Calgary Board of Education reviews guidelines for ponds on

school properties.January 1999 • New Calgary Board of Education Guidelines established; pond eliminated.May 1999 • Story Stone circle installed and berms built to replace pond.

• Second planting.August 1999 • Altadore is listed as a prizewinner in the Calgary Horticultural Society’s Annual Garden

Competition.September 1999 • Weather station installed.

• Altadore is featured on the CTV national news.November 1999 • Benches completed.December 1999 • Bird baths added (replacement for pond).

Things Kids Need

“Kids don’t need equipment,

they need opportunity.”

Ellen Shell, in Smithsonian

Sample Approaches

25

Summary: Says an organizer: “The road to success has not always been an easy haul. The Owl’s Nest has had les-sons for all parties concerned. The project has been an incredible success by any measure: the look of excitementthe children have when the first flower bursts into bloom; the discovery of a two-spotted ladybug sleeping inthe mulch after a cold Calgary winter; the sighting of a centipede scurrying away from the sun as a rock is gen-tly overturned; or when a butterfly, hatched in the classroom, is released with the sound of music in the back-ground. The Owl’s Nest has inspired a return to the Earth School Program, a trip to Zoo School (part of theChevron Open Minds Program) by the Grade 6 classes, a Winter Solstice Celebration and Christmas Bird Count. Thechallenge facing students, parents and staff in years to come is to continue finding creative ways to keep theOwl’s Nest in the curriculum and to keep the project’s energy alive.”

Project: The Pond ProjectSchool: Harry R. Hamilton Elementary School,

Halifax Regional School BoardAddress: Middle Sackville, Nova ScotiaStudents: K to 6Setting: Rural

Overview: The school is adjacent to a woodlot, a stream and a pond, and the initial plans in 1993 were to planttrees, shrubs and perennial flowers around the school grounds. This plan was expanded to include a pond restora-tion and amphibian habitat project and a butterfly garden in 1995.

Date HighlightsSpring 1993 • Grant from Evergreen to support the initial plantings of trees and shrubs.1995 • Grant from Evergreen the for Butterfly Garden and Amphibian Pond plantings.Fall 1995 • The Pond Project is featured in Evergreen’s The Outdoor Classroom newsletter.1996 • Environment Canada - Action 21 approves funding for the Pond Project.June 1997 • Harry R. Hamilton Elementary School receives the Nova Scotia Environmental Award in the

education category in recognition of the valuable contribution made to the preservationand enhancement of the environment, and receives the Evergreen Award of Excellence.

Summary: Writes organizer Jill Grandy: “The discovery of asmall, neglected pond on school property brought the schooland the community together to strive for its restoration.After much planning, The Pond Project officially got underway on Earth Day 1995. A general cleanup of the schoolproperty and pond area took place, including the removal ofan old wrecked car that had been contaminating the water.Resistance to The Pond Project has been minimal. The factthat a thriving amphibian pond need only be 18 inches deephas alleviated any fears concerning safety. The project is agood example of how real-life experiences lend themselvesto integration with the school curriculum. Students learnfirsthand the importance of preserving natural biodiversity.All the children have been involved in observing, identifying,

Halcyon Days in Nature

“My position is based upon the fact that the study of

the child in nature, culture and society reveals that

there is a special period, the little understood, prepu-

bertal, halcyon, middle age of childhood, approxi-

mately from five or six to 11 or 12, between the striv-

ings of animal infancy and the storms of adolescence

— when the natural world is experienced in some

highly evocative way, producing in the child a sense

of some profound continuity with natural processes.”

Edith Cobb, The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood


26

surveying, recording and problem solving, as well as writing poetry, stories, letters, reports, and drawing cartoons.They have constructed bridges and built sailboats. The students’ active involvement in all aspects of the project hasdeveloped within them a sense of commitment to thefuture of the pond.”

Project: The Learning PlaygroundSchool: Millgrove Public School, Hamilton

Wentworth Board of EducationAddress: Millgrove, OntarioStudents: K to 5Setting: Rural

Overview: An asphalt and grassed field area was trans-formed, with the following natural features introduced:butterfly garden, vegetable garden, large shade trees, amaze, berms, woodlot, peace garden and Carolinianrestoration. Built features include a shade structure, seating areas with picnic tables and benches, asphalt paint-ings, nest and habitat boxes, pathways and a creative sand/play area. A recent survey indicates that the percent-age of teachers using the Millgrove school ground for curriculum-based activities rose from less than 25 per centbefore the naturalization project began to an estimated 75 per cent or greater following naturalization.

Date Highlights1992 • Project planning and research begins. April 1993 • Carolinian Forest Ecological Restoration Area dedication.Spring 1994 • Evergreen school ground grant received.Fall 1994 • Second restoration area dedicated on the west side of the school.1995 • Peace Garden dedication; butterfly and vegetable gardens added.

• Millgrove School publishes a special news bulletin — The Learning Playground — and acommunity outreach brochure (hand-coloured by the students), which are distributed tothe school community to solicit parent support and to recognize community donations.

January 1996 • Learning Playground Symposium — every teacher and student was asked for input.Winter 1997 • Millgrove School is featured in The Outdoor Classroom newsletter published by Evergreen.May 1999 • International School Grounds Day — school assembly to recognize the many community

members who have contributed to the Learning Playground endeavour.

Summary: Organizer Marietta Stonehouse-Kish writes: “The idea of a regeneration garden started after participa-tion in the ‘Save the Don’ project in Toronto. After participating in this restoration — not only of the environ-ment but of the community and its people — I decided that our students in Millgrove should have a similaropportunity. I was not knowledgeable about native species, planting or landscaping, but once a decision wasmade, many ’experts’ came forward and volunteered their time and expertise. On Earth Day 1993, a back cornerof our playground became our garden. Little did we know as we huddled all of the children from kindergarten toGrade 5 onto one small piece of land that day, that just one year later we would have such a beautiful place asthis garden. Children love to work in the earth and to explore their world. I am convinced that if we teach themwhy, and how, to restore the Earth, things may turn around.”

Places for (and by) Children“From our research, it is clear that, generally, children feel thatareas and spaces specifically set aside for them do not meet theirneeds. The formally designated, traditional play areas, where theyexisted and where they were accessible, were mostly regarded withconsiderable criticism. Reasons given included the fact that theywere ‘boring’; ‘designed for babies’; frequented by teenagers;often damaged and poorly maintained; and generally served littleuseful purpose. There were exceptions to this, but as a generalrule, designated places for children, as they commonly experi-enced them, proved no substitute for unascribed, natural or‘found’ places in the external environment.”

Wendy Titman, Special Places; Special People

Conclusion

27

Section 5: CONCLUSION

The most compelling conclusion arising from the liter-ature of school ground transformation is that thereexists a hidden curriculum in school grounds — apotent educational force, which, if based on tradition-al expanses of asphalt and grass, can have detrimen-tal effects on the education, health and well-being ofchildren. However, if a naturalized school groundbecomes the basis of these subtle cultural messages,then the hidden curriculum creates an impressive webof benefits for students, teachers, schools and thecommunities of which they are a part. The benefits canbe summarized as follows:

For Students• more meaningful play and learning• safer and less hostile outdoor environments• more gender-neutral play spaces• lower exposure to toxins• experiential learning opportunities• improved academic performance• greater pride and ownership in learning• a chance to participate in democracy• better understanding of cultural differences• creation of sense of place

For Teachers• new curriculum connections• increased morale and enthusiasm for teaching• new reasons to go outside• increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning• reduced discipline and classroom management

problems

For Schools• curriculum connections• reduced disciplinary referrals, absenteeism and

dropout rates• reduction of antisocial behaviour on school grounds• better connections to community

• increased pride in school• restorative experience

For Community• stronger sense of community• increased community satisfaction• banked social capital• creation of healthy land ethic/environmental citi-

zenship• better community health• active involvement for parents in children’s school• healthier natural environment• possible financial savings

While there is some quantitative data and a slightlylarger body of qualitative evidence supporting thesebenefits — notably from the recent study by theAmerican State Education and EnvironmentRoundtable on using the environment as an integrat-ing context for learning — more research pertainingdirectly to the school ground transformation context isneeded. This literature raises as many questions as itanswers.

Some examples: Are all students equally engaged byparticipation in these projects? What about academicachievement? Does the EIC data hold for all schoolground naturalization initiatives? Is it better to useschool ground development as a builder of self-confi-dence and social currency that can then be taken backinto the classroom for study in the traditional disci-plines or should conventional subjects be integratedinto outdoor projects? What about evaluation of theprojects vis à vis stated objectives, and of studentinvolvement in the projects? What about the ongoinglife of these projects? What is the longitudinal expec-tation of success? What happens when pivotal teach-ers get tired, move schools or retire?

And what about the teachers who are doing this work?What kind of training and background do they have?Where did they get the confidence to try such a radicalidea? Should techniques for organizing school groundnaturalization be part of the teacher development cur-riculum at faculties of education across the country?


28

And what about curriculum? Does it matter, for exam-ple, that all of the British schools involved in the cre-ation of learning grounds work under a national cur-riculum when schools in Canada do not? And whatdoes the literature not contain? Are there examples ofspectacular failures in school ground transformation?What about the nitty-gritty details of getting jobsdone outside conventional disciplinary boxes, inplaces where traditional job descriptions overlap? Forexample, what do the maintenance unions and theinsurance companies have to say about students andteachers participating in non-traditional school activ-ities? Future research in the Canadian context shouldaddress these questions for a start in order to build adomestic scholarly literature in the area.

These questions notwithstanding, there is plenty ofevidence to conclude categorically that school groundnaturalization is an exceedingly worthwhile expendi-ture of energy, time and money. By turning the web ofbenefits on its side, layers become visible. The firstlayer of benefits has to do with shifting from conven-tional discipline-bound teaching to integrated, experi-ential project-based teaching. And while it is possiblefor this shift to occur inside a traditional classroom,moving education from indoors to outdoors seems toexpedite and assist the pedagogical transition. Thefundamental shift seems to be from asking “What is itthat I wish my students to know?” as a central organ-izing question (from which subject-specific learningthen flows), to “What is it that I wish my students todo?” as the origin of school ground learning. Andwhen this shift occurs, the literature indicates thatstudents become more involved in their own learning;from this inclusion flows a variety of positive out-comes, from increased engagement and enthusiasm forlearning to heightened appreciation of democraticdecision making.

The second layer of benefits has to do with a newnotion of curriculum in the minds of teachers and ofstudents. School ground learning appears to be predi-cated on a tripartite conception of curriculum andgives the hidden messages of school grounds and theinformal agendas of students parity with the formal

discipline-bound curriculum. For teachers, this recon-ceptualization of curriculum can result in a new appre-ciation of the learning potential of participation ingardening, digging sod, lifting asphalt or buildingarbors or benches. For students, participation inschool ground activity appears to give purpose, mean-ing and relevance to the learning, whether it’s meas-uring land to draw maps for new play spaces or beingencouraged to find refuges at recess or build dens intheir outdoor time.

Also relevant to the rethinking that happens when thehidden curriculum of school grounds is embraced isthe unavoidable appreciation of the school ground asa place of overlap between school and community. Theliterature shows quite clearly that when schoolgrounds become part of learning, the roster of possi-ble players in the learning process quite naturallyexpands to include members of the community as wellas school personnel. Adults from the community atlarge can take on more diversified and more meaning-ful roles in the education of students in particular, andin the life of the school in general.

A third layer of benefits is linked to the inclusion ofnature in curriculum. Evidence is strong that merelybeing in the presence of nature has measurable posi-tive restorative effects on people of all ages. Andwhen proximity to nature is extended to include gar-dening, planting or some kind of hands-on nurturingactivity, it has been shown to exponentially amplifybenefits, especially in the area of human health.Although not all school ground transformation proj-ects involve purposeful encounters with plants, theones that do demonstrate planting as a paramountbenefit. As such, although a teacher can shift to expe-riential pedagogy, move from a classroom to the out-doors and invite students to participate in the shap-ing of their own learning, and thereby reap some ofthe demonstrated benefits described in the schoolground transformation, readers should make no mis-take about this one point: connecting students tonature — to plants, to ponds, to birds, to the non-human world — in school ground projects makes aworld of difference. This is, after all, the main point of

Bibliography

29

the landmark EIC study. Every single benefit described,from increased standardized test scores to banking ofsocial capital and development of environmental liter-acy, was linked to one common factor: the naturalenvironment as an integrating context for learning.

A fourth layer of benefits occurs at a meta level and isa synergistic blend of the other three: experientialteaching, rethinking of the nature of curriculum, andconnection to nature. When, through the creation oflearning grounds, these three layers of benefit com-bine, then and only then do social and community ben-efits begin to accrue. These meta benefits includeincreased community satisfaction, better communityhealth and the banking of capacity for individuals toattend to the common good.

There are those who might argue that such lofty goalsshould not be the province of educators, and there arethose who also say that schools nowadays are failing atteaching students to read before they graduate. Theseare people for whom the existing literature related toschool ground naturalization should be of greatestinterest. In study after study, the message is thatschool ground naturalization can be smoothly integrat-ed into existing formal curricula — at minimal cost,staying more or less within conventional norms andexpectations about what teachers and students shoulddo in a day — and still have huge potential educa-tional, social and environmental gains. The ChildWelfare League of Canada argues that this type of ini-tiative would constitute a noticeable leap toward whatschooling in Canada should be.

Education of Canadian children must transcend the tra-ditional boundaries of our educational systems. If themandate of education within the meaning of the UNConvention on the Rights of the Child is to beaddressed — including development of the child’s per-sonality, talents and mental and physical abilities totheir fullest potential and preparation of the child forresponsible life in a free society — then the participa-tion of various jurisdictions beyond education must beincreased. Only through such collaboration can weaddress equitably the well-being of children across thisnation. (“Les enfants du Canada/Canada’s Children,”Child Welfare League of Canada, 1996)

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About the Research TeamJames Raffan is an independent writer andresearcher from Seeley’s Bay, Ontario. ChristineRobertson is an independent environmentalresearcher living in Waterloo, Ontario. HelenBatten is principal landscape architect atBasterfield and Associates in Peterborough,Ontario. Paul Young is a Toronto-based land-scape architect.

Evergreen is a national non-profit environmental organization with a mandate to bring nature to our cities through naturalization proj-ects. Evergreen motivates people to create and sustain healthy, natural outdoor spaces and gives them practical tools to be successfulthrough its three core programs: Learning Grounds (transforming school grounds); Common Grounds (working on publicly accessible land)and Home Grounds (for the home landscape). We believe that local stewardship creates vibrant neighbourhoods, a healthy natural envi-ronment and a sustainable society for all.

Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds Program

Learning Grounds brings teachers, students and neighbours together to transform traditionally barren asphalt and turf school grounds intonatural outdoor classrooms. By planting trees, shrubs and wildflowers, planning meadows or ponds and creating murals, sculptures, veg-etable gardens and other theme areas, the learning opportunities literally come alive. These outdoor classrooms provide students with ahealthy and safe place to play, learn and develop a genuine respect for nature and each other.

Evergreen Tool Shed

The Tool Shed is an integrated collection of resources designed to inspire, educate and guide students, teachers, planners, communitygroups and individuals through all stages of a school, community or home naturalization project. The Tool Shed series includes guidebooks, instructional and inspirational videos, fact sheets, case studies, newsletters, research reports and an on-line registry. For the lat-est information on Evergreen’s Tool Shed resources, check out our Web site at www.evergreen.ca.

Evergreen is funded by the generous support of individual Canadians, foundations, businesses and various government agencies. Major funding partners include:


1-888-426-3138 toll free in Canada - outside Toronto and Vancouver

“This text is of interest to all agents in the field of education. It will help any group interested in initiating aproject justify the time, energy and financial investments that [naturalizing school grounds] requires. The pub-lication of this piece is timely: the educational system in our country, and in other parts of the world, is adopt-ing a ‘new’ vision of the kind of learning it should provide. From what we read here, naturalization is key toachieving this vision.”

Anne Gillain MauffetteAssociate Professor of Education, The University of Quebec at Hull

Author of “Revisiting Children’s Outdoor Environments: A Focus on Design, Play and Safety”

“As an educational researcher, I was impressed with the review of the available literature. The writers of thereport present the material in a comprehensive, easily accessible manner that can speak to a variety of audi-ences. The structure of the report affords the reader an opportunity to clearly understand how such projects canaffect students, teachers, schools and the community. The writers clearly uncover the hidden curriculum of theasphalt/lawn grounds and point to a variety of ways that schools can embark on naturalization projects of theirown.”

Rita L. IrwinProfessor and Head, Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia


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