4 Reasons Green Schoolyards Earn Top Grades

As the opening bell rings on back-to-school season, the TurfMutt Foundation offers a lesson on the power of green schoolyards. While schoolyards full of trees, gardens and turfgrass are far more inviting than a sea of concrete, their value goes well beyond aesthetics.

Green schoolyards actively transform how students learn, play and connect with the world around them. Here are four reasons living landscapes go straight to the head of the class:

• Encourage active play and positive social connection: Living play areas—especially open turfgrass spaces—naturally move kids away from sedentary screen time. Studies from Frontiers in Psychology show that transforming school grounds into green environments leads to a marked decrease in inactive behavior while boosting positive peer interactions and cooperative play.
• Sharpen focus, memory and mood: You don't always have to be active to reap the rewards of nature. Research evaluating visual nature access reveals that simple exposure to green spaces around school grounds improves a child’s attention span, working memory and emotional regulation throughout the school day.
• Boost academic performance: Proximity to natural elements directly impacts classroom success. Studies show a strong positive correlation between tree canopy cover on or near school properties and higher academic achievement, particularly in reading and math standardized testing.
• Cools campuses and cleans the air: Living green space serves as critical infrastructure against urban heat islands – areas dominated by asphalt and concrete that trap excessive heat. Integrating trees, shrubbery and lawns into school sites significantly lowers localized ambient temperatures and filters air pollutants, creating safer, healthier outdoor environments for students.

Dive into TurfMutt’s International Backyarding Fact Book to learn more about why spending time in our yards, school grounds and community parks supports both personal wellness and the planet.

To learn more about creating your ideal outdoor environment, visit TurfMutt.com. And be sure to catch Mulligan the TurfMutt showing off her backyarding wisdom on CBS's Lucky Dog!