Creating Outdoor Spaces: The Infrastructure of Living Schoolyards

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Outdoor Learning Webinar Series

Click on the image above to access a YouTube playlist of past sessions

Click on the image above to View Recordings of past sessions in the “Outdoor Learning WEbinar Series” YouTube playlist.

Green Schoolyards America was honored to host the third in a series of four outdoor learning webinars for education professionals on May 11, 2022. This series was created by a consortium of leading U.S. outdoor education organizations including Big Green, EcoRise, Green Schoolyards America, Out Teach, and FreshFarm FoodPrints. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) supports the use of outdoor learning as an important educational tool and each webinar in the series features a welcome by a leader at ED. 

The webinar series highlights the well-documented benefits of outdoor education and offers tools and rationale for school districts and state boards of education to invest in the infrastructure, training, maintenance, and staffing needed to bring the multitude of benefits of this powerful resource to the students they serve.  Each webinar features examples of how schools and districts have used ESSER funds provided by the American Rescue Plan Act to support the immediate needs of safety and recovery related to COVID-19 and to support outdoor learning for the long term. 

ABOUT OUR HOST

Green Schoolyards America, the host of Session #3, collaborates with school districts and public agencies across the U.S. to establish large-scale living schoolyard programs that transform school grounds into ecologically rich, park-like green spaces. Our goal is to improve children’s health, learning, and happiness while contributing to communities’ ecological and climate resilience.

We are working to change the norm for school ground design, use, and management so all children will have access to the natural world in the places they visit every day. We center equity in our work and collaborate with communities that have the greatest need for educational, environmental, health, and open space improvements.

WEBINAR PROGRAM: Session #3

Click on the video above to watch Session #3, “Creating Outdoor Spaces: The Infrastructure of Living Schoolyards.”

Transforming existing school grounds into living schoolyards means creating richly layered environments that strengthen local ecological systems while providing place-based, hands-on learning resources for children and youth of all ages. These child-centered places can foster empathy, exploration, adventure and a wide range of play and social opportunities, while enhancing health and well-being and engaging the community. 

In this session we learned about living schoolyards in all regions of the country that support teaching and learning, health and well-being, as well as climate resilience. We explored the collaboration, systems, and tools needed to bring about change at the district level and how federal funds can support equitable outdoor infrastructure improvements.

Our speakers addressed the following topics:

Why are schoolyards important to the U.S. Department of Education?

Photo Courtesy Andrea Suarez Falken

Andrea Suarez Falken serves as Special Advisor for Infrastructure and Sustainability at the U.S. Department of Education, which includes overseeing the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools recognition Award.  This award is a communications and outreach tool responding to a widely supported public request that Falken has built from the ground up. Beyond the recognition award, Falken has come to lead the Department on matters related to school environment, sustainability, and infrastructure.  As part of this work, she has forged strong relationships at numerous federal agencies, state education agencies, and national nonprofit organizations in the areas of school facilities, health, and environment.  Falken began her federal tenure as a Presidential Management Fellow within the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Intelligence and Analysis.  She earned a master’s from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s from Colgate University.  Although her educational background is in foreign affairs and languages, she has, over the course of more than a decade, found leveraging public engagement to inform useful federal education policy to be a natural fit.  She enjoys finding creative ways to be responsive to the requests that ED receives and innovating in areas where there was no precedent for agency work.  Since 2014, the Washington, D.C. native has overseen the Department’s environment, sustainability, and infrastructure portfolio from her home in northern Colorado, where her household includes a state natural resource agency official and two active young boys who are intrigued by the natural world. In her spare time, she enjoys running, biking, skiing, backpacking, cooking, and playing piano. 

Email: andrea.falken@ed.gov
Twitter: @usedgov and @EDGreenRibbon
Instagram: @usedgov
Facebook: @usedgov and @EDGreenRibbonSchools

What is a living schoolyard and why does it matter?

Photo Courtesy Sharon Danks

Sharon Danks is the CEO and Founder of Green Schoolyards America. She is an author, researcher, and social entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience advocating for and building the green schoolyard field in the United States and abroad. As an environmental city planner, she has dedicated her career to changing the norm for school ground design, use, and management so that all children and youth will have daily access to nature right outside their classroom door. Her work focuses on developing large-scale living schoolyard initiatives that transform asphalt-covered school grounds into park-like green spaces that nurture children and improve their well-being, learning, and play while contributing to the ecological health and climate resilience of our cities.

Sharon is the author of the book, Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation, published by New Village Press. She has served on California’s statewide Environmental Literacy Task Force, and is co-founder of the International School Grounds Alliance, and the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative. She became an Ashoka Fellow in 2017. Sharon holds master’s degrees in landscape architecture and city planning from UC Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University. She is also the mother of two expert playground testers.

Email: sharon@greenschoolyards.org
Website: www.greenschoolyards.org
Twitter: @livingschoolyrd
Instagram: @greenschoolyards
Facebook: @greenschoolyardsamerica 

Why are schoolyards and outdoor learning important from an educator’s perspective?

Photo Courtesy Karina Salazar

Karina Salazar is a dedicated administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She has ushered innovative practices that have resulted in positive learning outcomes that cultivated environments where equity and inclusion are the norm. 

Karina’s meticulous implementation of innovative instructional leadership has resulted in spectacular results. During the return to in-person instruction in the Fall of 2020, Karina worked with partners to install green schoolyard classrooms at Kingsley Elementary School. Dynamic collaborations with District, university, and non-profit partners, transformed the school grounds as outdoor learning environments for improved mental health that alleviated anxiety by providing safer environments for teachers and students returning for in-person instruction. Parents and teachers lauded the use of green schoolyards- not simply to bring learning outdoors but to leverage natural spaces to make learning a multi-sensory and project-based experience. Two media outlets, the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio, ran feature stories about the brilliantly unconventional approach to finding a solution to in-person learning in midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Combined with her public-school experience, Karina also served on a work team for the California Environmental Literacy Taskforce to provide strategic direction on the California Department of Education’s A Blueprint for Environmental Literacy. Currently, she serves as the instructional leader for 19 schools in the Venice Community within the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

Email: karina.salazar@lausd.net
Instagram: @venice_ldwest
Facebook: @veniceldwest

Why are living schoolyards important from a climate and sustainability perspective?

Photo Courtesy Dr. Ghita Levenstein Carroll

Dr. Ghita Levenstein Carroll is the Sustainability Coordinator for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado. She is a pioneer in advancing district level sustainability planning and initiatives and her award-winning work has touched tens of thousands of students. Dr. Carroll’s successes include defining a vision and goals for district-wide environmental sustainability, receiving Board of Education approval for a policy that supports sustainability initiatives, green building design strategies, outdoor learning, and environmental awareness throughout the district. Previously, Dr. Carroll managed the energy program for the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Environmental Center, where she developed and led a university wind power campaign in 2000, making the school the first in the nation to raise student fees to support wind power. Dr. Carroll was previously an instructor for the Sustainable Practices Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She received a PhD in environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Email: ghita.carroll@bvsd.org
Website: www.bvsd.org/departments/operational-services/sustainability
Twitter: @greenBVSD
Instagram: greenBVSD
Facebook: @BoulderValleySchoolDistrict

What resources are available to support outdoor learning and living schoolyards?

Photo Courtesy Nancy Striniste

Nancy Striniste is the Director of East Coast Programs at Green Schoolyards America where her work has focused on developing and curating the National Outdoor Learning Library and supporting schools, districts, and the development of policy related to outdoor learning. She is also the founder and principal designer at EarlySpace, LLC, and has a unique background as both a landscape designer and an early childhood educator.  Nancy has worked throughout the mid-Atlantic to create sustainably designed natural play and learning spaces. Ms. Striniste is the author of Nature Play at Home: Creating Outdoor Spaces that Connect Children to the Natural World (Timber Press 2019).  She teaches at Antioch University New England in their Nature-based Early Childhood Graduate Certificate program, serves on the Nature Play Workgroup of the Maryland Partnership for Children and Nature, and on the Leadership Team of NoVA Outside.  She holds a master’s degree in sustainable landscape design from The George Washington University, and a BS in education from Wheelock College in Boston, MA. She is the mom of two nature-loving adults and lives under a green roof in Arlington, Virginia. 

Email: nancy@greenschoolyards.org
Website: www.greenschoolyards.org
Twitter: @livingschoolyrd
Instagram: @greenschoolyards
Facebook: @greenschoolyardsamerica

How do we fund schoolyard infrastructure?

Photo Courtesy Mary Filardo

Mary Filardo is the Executive Director of the 21st Century School Fund and founded the [Re]Build America’s School Infrastructure Coalition (BASIC). She is a leading national authority and advocate for improving the equity, efficiency, and quality of public-school buildings and grounds. Mary has researched and written extensively on public school facility policy and spending, as well as worked with local and state communities and officials on effective long-range facilities master planning, facilities data management, and improved oversight and accountability for capital programs.

She has a BA in philosophy and mathematics from St. John's College, a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Maryland and is a 1979 Truman Scholar from the District of Columbia.

Email: mfilardo@21csf.org
21st Century School Fund: www.21csf.org
Twitter: @21CSF
[Re]Build America’s School Infrastructure Coalition (BASIC): www.buildUSschools.org
Twitter: @buildusschools

SPECIAL THANKS 

Special thanks to Kimbal Musk, CEO of contributing organization, Big Green, for joining the webinar and sharing his perspective on the future of green schools and the importance of outdoor learning. 

Kimbal Musk is a chef, restaurateur, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. His personal mission is to empower and invest in the next generation of passionate food entrepreneurs to innovate and grow nutritious, real food. Mr. Musk has been named a Global Social Entrepreneur by the World Economic Forum. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Kitchen Restaurant Group, Big Green, and the Executive Chairman of Square Roots. He is also one of the partners of the consortium of national outdoor learning organizations who created this series.

Website: www.biggreen.org
Twitter: @kimbal
Instagram: @kimbalmusk
Facebook: @kimbalmuskofficial

RESOURCES

This section includes links and resources shared during the webinar and recommended for follow-up as well as answers to questions posed by participants during the live webinar. 

Introduction

Presenter 1: Andrea Falken
Special Advisor for Infrastructure and Sustainability
U.S. Department of Education

Presenter 2: Sharon Danks
CEO and Founder
Green Schoolyards America

Presenter 3: Karina Salazar
Venice Community of Schools Administrator
Los Angeles Unified School District

Presenter 4: Dr. Ghita Levenstein Carroll
Sustainability Coordinator
Boulder Valley School District (Colorado)

Presenter 5: Nancy Striniste
Director of East Coast Programs, Green Schoolyards America
Founder and Principal Designer, EarlySpace, LLC

Presenter 6: Mary Filardo 
Founder
21st Century School Fund, and [Re]Build America’s School Infrastructure Coalition (BASIC)

Past Sessions

Recordings of all sessions will be available to registrants after each session.

Session One: The Health Benefits of Outdoor Learning hosted by Big Green.  Recording and recap available here. 

Session Two: Teaching and Learning Outside hosted by Out Teach.  Recording and recap available here. 

Session Three: Creating Outdoor Spaces: The Infrastructure of Living Schoolyards hosted by Green Schoolyards America. Recording available here. 

UPCOMING Session

Session Four: Equity in Outdoor Education and Environmental Justice hosted by EcoRise will be held on May 25, 2022.  Register here.