Living Schoolyards for Seattle Public Schools: Strategies for Implementing and Sustaining Living Public Schoolyards

Abstract

This thesis examines Seattle Public Schools processes that promote and/or inhibit the implementation of dynamic living schoolyards in elementary schools, and proposes phased strategies to achieve more equitable and efficient green schoolyard implementation district wide. Schoolyards are impactful teaching landscapes, and schoolyard design directly impacts student learning. Living schoolyards (schoolyards that feature natural areas of vegetation, offer open-ended “loose parts” play, and landscape linked curricula) provide important benefits for student health and wellbeing. Despite a large body of evidence indicating that green schoolyards support children’s learning, Seattle Public Schools elementary school campuses rarely incorporate these features into their schoolyards. Implementing green schoolyards in public schools offers one means of addressing environmental justice, equitable school resource distribution, improved student physical and psychological health, and long-term climate change resilience.