By Claire Elise Thompson for Grist.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

When Lois Brink’s kids were in elementary school, she remembers being struck by how uninviting their schoolyard was. She described it as “scorched earth” — little more than a dirt field coated in “I don’t know how many decades of weed retardant” and some aging play equipment. But Brink, a landscape architect and professor at the University of Colorado Denver, didn’t just see a problem. She saw fertile ground for a solution. Over the next dozen years, she helped lead a transformation of nearly 100 elementary school grounds across Denver into more vibrant, greener spaces, dubbed “Learning Landscapes.”

Public schools alone cover about 2 million acres of land in the U.S. Although comprehensive data is hard to come by, the “scorched earth” that Brink witnessed is the norm in many places — according to the Trust for Public Land, around 36 percent of the nation’s public school students attend school in what would be considered a heat island. And as with green spaces writ large, a dearth of schoolyard trees and other vegetation tends to be most common in lower-income areas and Black and brown neighborhoods.

“It really makes sense to think about how those spaces can serve well-being, development, learning, and social cohesion — and also environmental justice and resilience goals that can help a community thrive,” said Priya Cook, director of green schoolyards and communities at Children & Nature Network, one organization working to advance this goal. The org recently published a report looking at how the benefits of green schoolyards translate into economic value, focusing on Denver as a case study and using data from Brink’s work.

Incorporating factors such as school attendance and academic scores, carbon sequestration and rainwater retention, and overall community health and public safety, the report estimated that communities can reap a more than $3 return for every $1 invested in green schoolyards.

In Denver, Learning Landscapes schools saw increases in math and writing scores and overall school performance (a measure combining factors such as academic scores and graduation, dropout, and participation rates). And although this research is not definitive, the study stated that “if green schoolyards can improve student achievement in elementary school, they likely have a positive impact on high school graduation rates.” That in turn cascades into improved employment outcomes, and increased tax revenue. The study also concluded that benefits are amplified if green schoolyards are made available to the public. For instance, previous research has shown that property values increase by as much as 5 percent when the properties are within 500 feet of a park.

For Cook, translating the benefits of greening schoolyards into a monetary value is about more than helping schools think about how to spend their limited budgets – it’s about opening up new avenues of funding. “School districts are notoriously underfunded,” Cook noted. “And this is a strategy that benefits all of society. And so the financing needs to come from organizations in community development, economic development, public health — these sectors that are thinking about the whole child, whole community, society-level outcomes.”

After Brink’s aha moment at her own kids’ school, she decided to get her graduate students at the university involved in designing a better alternative. Realizing the school district didn’t have money to implement their vision, they raised the funds themselves to install a pilot at Bromwell Elementary, the school her kids attended. “Then we realized, when you raise the money for something, the district is much more willing to maybe do things nontraditional and rethink what a schoolyard could look like as a civic space,” Brink said.

That approach got the school district on board for expanding the initiative to other schools. In 2000, Brink formed the Learning Landscape alliance, a public-private partnership with support from the city, local nonprofits, and contractors that were willing to donate pro bono services to keep costs down. Over the next three years, they worked with communities to design and convert 22 schoolyards in Denver’s industrial crescent.

“What we were trying to convince the district of is that each schoolyard needs to be a total transformation,” Brink said. Each project was unique, both in its design and in the process it took to implement it. For instance, Brink recalls at one school, many of the parents happened to work in the landscape industry, so they volunteered their time alongside the contractors, laying irrigation and sod. At another school that primarily served Latino students, Brink said, the team designed raised planters that mimicked Aztec geometry.

In 2003, and then again in 2008, the Denver Public School Board proposed, and citywide voters passed, a ballot measure to set aside funding to expand the conversions throughout the city. “You had a city where 60 percent of the voters didn’t have children. And yet this passed overwhelmingly every time,” Brink said. “It was just really, really great to see that sort of level of engagement.”

All told, between 2000 and 2012, the Learning Landscapes initiative converted every single public elementary school campus in Denver to a green schoolyard, totaling 306 acres.

And all the while, Brink has been collecting data. In December of last year, she prepared a report for Children & Nature Network analyzing some of the key takeaways from Learning Landscapes (that formed the basis of its study on the economic benefits of green schoolyards more broadly). Among other impacts, the report noted a 7 percent reduction in student mobility (the rate at which students transfer in and out of a school), a $1.3 million boost in state funding thanks to increased student enrollment, and 1,284 tons of carbon sequestered each year across all the green schoolyards.

With all the benefits of green schoolyards, for students, communities, and the environment, it may seem like a no-brainer solution. Still, there are barriers to converting every single schoolyard into a green space — a vision that Children & Nature Network hopes to help realize by 2050, Priya Cook said.

Cost is one obvious one. But even more than the actual dollars, Cook said, it’s often the initiative it takes to bring together diverse stakeholders to make a project happen — what Brink and her students did when they scrapped together the resources to implement their vision in Denver, through a combination of volunteer labor, pro bono services, and public and nonprofit dollars.

Ironically, Cook noted, a significant barrier to finding the funding for green schoolyards lies in one of their greatest strengths: They’re a multifaceted solution. “Markets tend to underinvest in strategies that produce broad benefits to society,” she said. For instance, if a school, nonprofit, or other funder wanted to make changes to prioritize students’ mental health, it might invest its limited dollars in counseling programs or other targeted interventions, rather than thinking about something like nature access — even though nature access does improve mental health, in addition to other benefits.

“We have to think differently to pick multi-solving interventions,” Cook said.

Still, she’s hopeful that the growing body of research on green schoolyards will continue to bring more stakeholders to the fold.

“I think there’s absolutely more hunger for it,” she said, “and people do it in really ingenious ways. Some places have multimillion dollar investments in a single site, and some places find small grants and they do a lot of surface installations that change kids’ experience every day.”


Claire Elise Thompson wrote this article for Grist.


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Members of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance are supporting two moratoriums on concentrated animal feeding operations to be voted on today by the Arkansas Administrative Rules subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council.

Concentrated animal feeding operations are large agriculture facilities which keep animals confined in small spaces.

Gordon Watkins, president of the alliance, said Regulations 5 and 6 include a moratorium on swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in the watershed, but Regulation 5 does not include adequate public notification requirements. He pointed out the regulation only requires a request for a permit be posted on the Department of Agriculture website.

"If someone wants to put a 10,000-animal hog-confinement facility next door to you, you'd probably like to know about that," Watkins contended. "Secondly, in order to oppose a permit -- legally -- it's a 30-day comment period, and unless you submit comments on it, you do not have standing to legally challenge a permit."

He acknowledged Regulation 6 has stronger notification requirements which include notifying nearby landowners, publishing the permit request in the local newspaper and contacting school superintendents within a 10-mile radius of the proposed facility.

The last concentrated animal feeding operation allowed near the Buffalo National River, C and H Swine, was shut down in 2019. Watkins added he is a farmer but feels the area needs to be protected.

"It's the first National River ever created in the country. It's also a state icon," Watkins stressed. "If you look at any of the literature, put out by the department of tourism to promote the state, you'll see images from the Buffalo National River. It's an economic engine to some of the poorest counties in the state."

It was discovered in 2018 the C and H swine operation contaminated the water quality in Big Creek and the Buffalo River. Today's meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m.


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CORRECTION: In the second paragraph, the term "mature forests" was replaced with language to more accurately describe the lands connected to the provided stastic. (1:53 p.m. CST, Oct. 30, 2024)

Did you check out fall colors in Wisconsin this month and wonder how old the trees are? There is a chance they are not in what's known as an "old-growth forest."

Regional voices are weighing in on a federal plan to expand these lands, to tap into their benefits. The U.S. Forest Service has gathered public input on a proposed National Old Growth Amendment, with a priority to conserve and restore these characteristics on federal lands. Only 17% of the acres within federally managed forest land falls under the category.

Jeff Niese, a Wisconsin-based forestry consultant, supports expanding the acreage, describing it as an underrepresented landscape in the Badger State.

"Foresters have a long-range perspective on managing ecosystems, not just trees," Niese explained. "We have a better concept of what we started with if we have saved all the pieces in some of our forest ecosystems and types."

Such pieces can include standing dead trees and multilayered canopies. Conservation advocates said they set the tone for more biological diversity and carbon sequestration. The amendment is expected to emphasize local solutions and Niese hopes the final plan sets aside some parcels of land where nature is in charge of the management, aside from forest supervisors. He cautioned political and economic factors can complicate efforts.

The initiative also strives to be more inclusive of tribal leaders.

Jason Schlender, executive administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, sees promise in having a bigger voice.

"If it's to support wild rice restoration, or if it's to assist with deer populations, those are things that we can do based on research and based on knowledge transferred to us from an Indigenous perspective," Schlender emphasized.

As The Pew Charitable Trusts has pointed out, Schlender stressed climate change poses a threat to old-growth forests. Pew officials say among other things, the final plan should articulate a framework for establishing future generations of old-growth forests. Even in places where logging is no longer a primary threat, skeptics suggest the Forest Service has not placed enough scrutiny on the timber industry.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.


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As Election Day approaches, Oregonians and people around the country can see how their members of Congress voted on issues related to national parks.

The National Parks Action Fund's 2024 Congressional Scorecard grades members based on votes, on things like an amendment to cut park funding by 13%.

Don Barry was assistant secretary of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks in the Interior Department under President Bill Clinton, and lives in southern Oregon.

He said the state has an abundance of public lands that are important to residents, and thinks cutting the park service by 13% would be devastating.

"People move to Oregon now not to cut timber and make two-by-fours," said Barry. "They move to Oregon because of the beauty of the natural resources that are here. And so, how Congress votes on the funding for the federal land-managing agencies - the Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service - matters."

Barry said unfortunately his member of Congress, Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, received a failing grade on the scorecard.

Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Happy Valley, received a 'C.' The rest of state's representatives - all Democrats - received 'A's.'

House Republicans proposed national parks cuts in government spending negotiations to decrease the national debt.

Kristen Brengel, executive director of National Parks Action, said people across the country love visiting national parks - and so, it matters what happens to them in Congress.

"If you want to judge how a member of Congress has voted on national parks," said Brengel, "it's sort of similar to making sure the values of this member of Congress line up with your own and your family's."

The scorecard grades were based on other votes as well, including oil and gas development around certain national parks and weakening protections under the Endangered Species Act.