The Green Grass Grew All Around: Rethinking Urban Natural Spaces with Children in Mind

Abstract

In North America’s rapidly urbanizing environment, nearby, accessible natural spaces allow children to interact daily with nature, resulting in physical, cognitive, psychological and social health benefits. In order to understand children’s current interactions with greenspaces, grade 5 and 6 students in the City of Waterloo, Ontario were interviewed, asked to draw their neighborhoods and indicate their preference on a series of local photographs with varying amounts of natural features. Results were combined with teacher and city official interviews, as well as analyses of strategy and policy documents. According to this study, local children have mixed feelings toward, and minimal contact with, natural areas. Possible causes include fear, liability, decreased outdoor education, and governments that do not consider children to be stakeholders of greenspaces. Barriers to children’s relationships with nature could be deconstructed and replaced with bridges such as creative greenspace planning, child involvement and green schoolgrounds.