Living Schoolyards

Living schoolyards are school grounds and campuses that support the biodiversity of human and non-human life. They are also, for many schools, a return to the natural flora and fauna that existed before people arrived. From asphalt playgrounds to outdoor classrooms, the 21st-century calls for us to connect with the out-of-doors and all that nature holds for us. Living schoolyards celebrate the importance of nature play, diversifying passive and active, individual and collaborative, wet and dry, and quiet and noisy activities around the school campus. As humans on average spend 90% of their lives indoors, many have become denatured and separated from the origins of place with the sky the ceiling, the surrounding flora and fauna, and the ground so full of food-sharing resources. Living Schoolyards follow evidence-based research on the calming effects of being in nature every day. Early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school students benefit from the gifts of spending times out of doors. AS the UN forwards the Nature Bill to replace and provide for any biodiversity of life interrupted in the building of buildings and cities with wetlands, prairies, woodlands, schools as learning laboratories can introduce maker spaces across the campus generating stations for place-based project learning.