Editors' Response to the Review of Greening School Grounds

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol 13, No.2 (2003) ISSN 1546-2250 Editors' Response to the Review of Greening School Grounds Gail Littlejohn Green Teacher Tim Grant Citation: Littlejohn, Gail and Tim Grant. “Editors Response to the Review of Greening School Grounds .” Children, Youth and Environments 13(2), 2003. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the thoughtful questions raised by the reviewer. We designed Greening School Grounds, after an extensive consultation process, to meet three basic needs. We wanted to assist those wanting to start a schoolyard greening project. We also wanted to help others enhance their existing projects. Above all, we aimed to help all educators better connect learning to their outdoor classroom activities. We agree with the reviewer that schoolyard greening projects require leadership and support at the school and policy level, and, accordingly, we tried to provide some persuasive tools for teachers who are in the position of needing to convince reluctant administrators of the value of such projects. For example, Anne Bell's “The Pedagogical Potential of School Grounds” looks at research by Lieberman, Raffan and others that demonstrates the positive effects of outdoor experiences on learning. In a similar vein, author Edward Cheskey looks at the emotional and cognitive benefits of well-designed landscapes, and Ann Coffey discusses how enriching children's outdoor environments has been shown to reduce anti-social behavior such as playground bullying. In response to the reviewer's suggestion that the book needed “a summary by the editors... that looks hard at the obvious challenges (budget, long-term maintenance, staffing) and 163 offers realistic suggestions on how to overcome them,” we wish to point out that two early chapters in the book, “Maximizing Participation” and “Funding Schoolyard Projects,” provide detailed discussion of and suggestions for addressing maintenance and budget issues. As for staffing a schoolyard greening project, we did not think this was a realistic option for most cash-strapped schools, nor does it encourage the sense of ownership that is so essential to a project's success. Instead, the emphasis throughout the book is on actively engaging all members of the school community- students, teachers, caretakers, parents, neighbors- in the planning, fundraising, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of the project. Finally, the reviewer rightfully recognizes that schoolyard greening initiatives are not for the faint of heart. To be successful, they require enormous resources, both human and material. No one knows this better than those in the nascent movement of outdoor classroom practitioners who, during the past decade, have systematically addressed the significant challenges and obstacles these projects present. Rather than downplaying the challenges, Greening School Grounds was an attempt to bring together the best strategies developed to date by these experts in the field, and to share the experience of some of the thousands of school communities across North America who have succeeded in transforming bleak asphalt playgrounds into vibrant outdoor classrooms. Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn are the editors and publishers of GreenTeacher, a non-profit quarterly magazine in which educators from across North America share ideas for promoting environmental awareness in young people from grades K to 12. In addition to editing Greening School Grounds, they edited and co-published the book Teaching About Climate Change: Cool Schools Tackle Global Warming (Green Teacher/New Society Publishers, 2001) and its French adaptation Des idées fraîches à l'école: Activités et projets 164 pour contrer les changements climatiques. They are currently working on a resource guide for teachers of grades 6-8 titled Teaching Green: The Middle Years, to be co-published with New Society Publishers in April 2004. Both are former high school teachers and graduates of the University of Waterloo (Ontario) and the University of Toronto. ...