Schoolyards are supposed to be places where children can get outside and play between classes. However, lots of schoolyards are becoming increasingly harsh environments. Black asphalt and metal structures can make schoolyards sweltering and unwelcoming places to rest or have fun.
Making things worse is climate change: extreme heat is becoming common and the impact is made worse in areas that have little to no tree cover, grass, and other greenery in the landscape. With children being the most at risk for heat-related illnesses, the state of California, Oakland Unified School District, and nonprofits like the Trust for Public Land have stepped up to do something about it.
Melrose Leadership Academy a Transitional Kindergarten through 8th grade school located in Oakland’s Maxwell Park neighborhood that provides education in both English and Spanish, is the latest of three OUSD schools to go from having a sweltering blacktop covering much of the outdoors on its campus to having a “green” and “living” schoolyard.
During the seven-year renovation, the schoolyard was converted from a mostly asphalt-covered lot to one featuring several native plant gardens, an array of shade trees, a shaded picnic table area, a multi-purpose turf field, and a mural-covered basketball and foursquare court. The native plants can absorb over 61,000 gallons of stormwater and help keep kids cool on hot days. There is also signage in the yard to help kids understand the landscape.
Recent research has suggested that green schoolyards provide health and academic benefits to children.
“Green spaces—trees—they bring a lot of environmental benefits but for schools and communities, they also bring a sense of peace. It’s very good for mental health,” said Terence Wu, the Parks for People Project associate for The Trust for Public Land, a non-profit focused on connecting communities with the outdoors. “In a place as urban as Oakland, it’s hard to have these parks and green spaces.”
Melrose Leadership Academy began a $2 million renovation of their schoolyard in 2017 with money largely received by way of a grant from the Coastal Conservancy. There was also additional funding provided by private donors.
Melrose is one of three green schoolyards that have been completed at OUSD schools. OUSD’s César E. Chávez Campus and Markham Elementary also had concrete torn up and replaced with greenery. Renovations are also underway at Bridges Academy. These projects were all aided by the non-profits Green Schoolyards America and Growing Together Bay Area.
“Green schoolyards are truly transformational spaces,” said Amy Hutzel, the State Coastal Conservancy’s executive officer. “By replacing pavement with trees, plants, and nature-based education and play areas, these schoolyards are improving water quality in the Bay, reducing heat island effects, and creating a series of green spaces and gardens where students and their communities can learn, play, and enjoy nature.”
Green schoolyards can help kids weather a hotter planet
Climate change and increased urbanization have made communities—especially cities—more vulnerable to the urban heat island effect. Concrete, buildings, and other unnatural surfaces absorb heat and radiate it much more than soil and plants, causing some urban areas to become dangerously hot.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, young children face higher risks of illness from heat due to several factors. Notably, children sweat more than adults. They also usually spend more time active outdoors, which puts them at risk for heat exposure. UNICEF also notes that children are less likely to rehydrate on their own and can be more at risk of dehydration.
When children are consistently exposed to high heat levels it can affect their physical and mental health. Children exposed to extreme heat may have trouble sleeping, have higher stress levels, experience depression and diarrhea, and face a higher risk for respiratory issues and kidney failure.
Studies have also shown that heat waves and extreme heat can cause students to miss school. One recent study looking at the effects of extreme temperatures at England’s schools suggested that they expect to see increased absenteeism due to heat.
One of the best ways to cool urban areas, especially in and around schools, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, is to plant trees and cover more ground area with vegetation instead of asphalt. Schools across the country have been digging up asphalt and replacing it with spaces for trees, shaded areas, and fields in recent years. Research has shown that having more access to green spaces can help keep kids cool, encourage them to engage with the environment, provide better access to opportunities for play, and support climate resilience overall. This is especially key in urban environments where kids may have limited access to other green spaces.
‘A place where you’d want to be a middle schooler’
Jonathan Mayer joined Melrose Leadership as principal last June. While he’s still relatively new to the school, he said he saw a great need for greening the campus.
“Before it was under construction most of the [the schoolyard] wasn’t usable, it was pretty ugly,” said Mayer. “The need was extremely high.”
The Trust for Public Land removed 14,100 square feet of asphalt from Melrose’s outdoor areas and planted native shrubs, several trees, and installed a multi-purpose turf field. With Freestone Capital Management and Project Backboard they painted a mural on the basketball and foursquare courts that depicts pollinators like butterflies and flowers. Previous renovation work also provided several planter boxes for the school to have a small garden.
Mayers says that the school now intends to educate its students on the new space and work with them to enjoy and learn about the area.
“I think this is great, I mean it’s a place where you’d want to be a middle schooler,” said Mayer. “It’s giving the students a middle school experience that I’m sure did not exist six months ago.”
Alejandra Chiesa, vice president of Green Schoolyards America, commends OUSD for their openness to this type of work. Over the years, she has seen a significant shift in school districts’ willingness to implement more greenery.
However, there are still barriers to making more campuses climate-resilient with cooling landscapes. Green Schoolyards for America recently studied schoolyard renovations in California, finding that there are tricky issues with maintenance, safety and liability, funding, and state policy, among other roadblocks that can slow or stop a project.
“Everything [we identified] is obviously fixable, some things just take time,” said Chiesa. “When a system of how to do things has been in place for so long, it just takes time to change.”
In July 2023, Gov. Gavin Newson announced the Green Schoolyard Grant program as part of his Extreme Heat Action Plan, an initiative focused on creating community resilience around increasing temperatures. The grant program provides funding for California schools to remove pavement in favor of natural features, create drought-tolerant schoolyard gardens, and help children connect with the natural environment.
Chiesa said she hopes that recent opportunities for governmental funding will help address the need for more green schoolyards without getting caught up in the logistical barriers. Specifically, Chiesa doesn’t want to see this funding get caught up in bureaucratic systems that could impact the swift and equitable distribution of the money.
With grant writing help from the Trust for Public Land, OUSD was one of the initial grant recipients for the first round of funding from the state and will put it towards additional green schoolyard projects. The district was awarded $5 million to renovate Manzanita Community School and Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, and an additional $2.8 million for planning additional renovations.
“We’re just very excited to have been able to work on these types of projects because it’s such a big impact,” said Wu in reference to his and other’s work at the Trust for Public Land. “With schools here’s so many, many hundreds of students that come through that the impact is immediate. We know it’s going to be used and it’s going to be loved. And it is very, very well loved by the community.”
