Children from marginalized communities are less likely to have access to green spaces at their schools, but school leaders and students can make a difference in changing that dynamic.
That’s the conclusion of a white paper by a team from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Education and local organizations who are participating in the 8th Annual Green & Healthy Schools Conference.
The conference takes place Aug. 21 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the UWM Student Union, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd. It will feature participants from a variety of local organizations, including UWM’s Schools of Architecture and Urban Planning, Education and Freshwater Sciences. The focus of the conference is on how schools can change their environments to reduce the amount of asphalt and increase green space.
A recent article from the Brookings Institution website outlined the issues and highlighted some of the changes that are being made in Milwaukee schools. Carolyn Esswein, associate professor architecture at UWM, and Justin Hegarty of Reflo wrote the story.
Justin Hougham, who is affiliated with the School of Education’s Department of Administrative Leadership and the UW-Madison Division of Extension, wrote the white paper in collaboration with other School of Education and Division of Extension staff. Educators from Escuela Verde and the TransCenter for Youth also collaborated.
The focus of the paper is on how inequities and the opportunity gap affect students, especially in the often-overlooked area of green space.
“The intentional construction of greenspaces and green schoolyards for PreK-12 schools has been proven to have positive effects – yet Milwaukee residents that identify as Black, Hispanic and Latinx, Indigenous and Native American, or Asian American and Pacific Islander have access to about 44% less park space than residents of neighborhoods that are predominantly White,” according to the authors.
Schools can play a critical role in advancing the benefits of green spaces – both in terms of their construction and integration of the learning spaces into the school curriculum, according to the authors. The paper looks at how school leadership, project-based learning and green school yards can provide more equitable access to students to incorporate nature into their learning, and recommends letting students help make decisions about green space projects and programs.
Examples of how these ideas can be put into action in Milwaukee are found in the work that is underway at Escuela Verde, which is one of the TransCenter for Youth high schools in the city. Escuela Verde focuses on environmental literacy and includes project-based learning that lets students explore how science and ecology connect to many other domains and subjects.
