Transforming Schoolyards
Over 28 million kids in America don’t have a park within a 10-minute walk of home. A solution is hiding in plain sight: schoolyards. Support Our Work
With help from our partners and supporters, we’ve created 350 community schoolyards projects and continue to lead the movement to transform our nation’s asphalt playgrounds into vibrant green spaces that are improving student education outcomes and community health and climate resiliency.
Parks are essential for healthy, equitable communities. And almost 20 million people without park access, including kids and their families, live within a 10-minute walk of a public school.
That’s why we’ve been partnering with communities and school administrators to open schoolyards to the public after school hours and transform them from blacktops into vibrant play spaces, connecting students and neighbors alike to the benefits of the outdoors.
If all schoolyards were transformed and opened to the community after hours, 80 million people would have access to a new park within a 10-minute walk of home.
Along with promoting better mental and physical well-being, cleaner air, and climate change resilience, creating more community schoolyards can deliver a host of educational benefits.
Our research shows that right now, white communities still have an advantage over Black, Hispanic, Latinx, Asian, Native American, and other communities of color in the quality of outdoor learning spaces and park access.
Our work is helping to ensure the amazing benefits of community schoolyards are available for all future generations.
In September 2022, Nike announced the creation of their Community Climate Resilience Program, a targeted program that helps provide access to more green spaces and parks, increasing sports participation in the communities that need it most. The program funds projects that advance a critical goal: build climate resilience in communities disproportionately impacted by climate threats. Its method: creating and cultivating healthy, active, and resilient public greenspaces.
Trust for Public Land received the program’s inaugural grant to fund U.S.-based projects advancing climate resilience and access to sport in communities disproportionally impacted by climate threats.
Nike’s support is strengthening community resilience through climate-smart park and schoolyard solutions in four low-income, underserved neighborhoods across New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. These high-quality green spaces also provide health, equity, and community benefits.
Community schoolyards advance health, climate, equity, and educational outcomes in students and their communities. They are an evidence-based initiative that works to address some of society’s greatest inequities.
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Education Benefits
Students benefit when we swap asphalt deserts for trees, gardens, and updated play equipment. According to teachers and school administration, attendance, behavior, and test scores all improve after schoolyard renovations.
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Health Outcomes
Community schoolyards open to surrounding neighborhoods help students, families, and neighbors stay active and healthy. Access to these green spaces—where you can spend time in nature—reduces stress, depression, and anxiety. It also improves concentration, lowers obesity rates, and reduces blood pressure.
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Closing the Park Equity Gap
Community schoolyards have the potential to help shrink the park equity gap. Our data analysis reveals that in the 100 most populous U.S. cities, neighborhoods where residents predominantly identify as people of color have access to an average of 44 percent less park acreage than predominantly white neighborhoods. A similar pattern emerges in low-income versus high-income communities.
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Climate Resilience
Renovated schoolyards have climate superpowers. Specially landscaped gardens, bioswales, and porous surfaces absorb stormwater and prevent flooding. Trees cool down play spaces and surrounding areas.
Yet our study shows that nationwide, 36 percent of the nation’s 50.8 million public school students attended school in a heat island. This has a direct negative impact on learning and the community’s climate resilience. We’re working to change that.
Our nation’s public schools own 2 million acres of land. That’s plenty of room to plant trees—and make sweeping improvements to toward safer, more climate-resilient play spaces—which is exactly what Trust for Public Land is doing through its Schoolyards initiative.
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Schoolyards as Civics Labs
By helping to design their own schoolyards, students learn about everything from native plants to drainage to urban heat. Embedded in the design process is another lesson: the importance of collaboration and the power of advocacy.
Greatness Isn’t Born, It’s Made—Through Partnerships Like ThisNike knows how to get everyone moving. But the ability of tomorrow’s superstar athletes—and everyone else—to be active is threatened by climate change. By supporting TPL’s national effort to elevate park and climate equity, Nike’s working to make parks and schoolyards available everywhere for everyone.
Putting Money Where Our Mission Is—by Planting More TreesAt the front line in the fight against climate change, trees are proving to be tough combatants. With TPL’s help, and some important government funding, they’re also creating more equitable cities.
Our Mission Is to Make Community Schoolyards a Standard Practice
Take action now and ask your elected officials to provide funding that will transform our nation’s asphalt schoolyards into vibrant parks for kids and their communities, regardless of zip code.
Explore some of our schoolyard projects to learn more about the impact of this important work.
