Response to Review of Gaining Ground: The Power and Potential of School Ground Greening

Children, Youth and Environments 15(2), 2005 Response to Review of Gaining Ground: The Power and Potential of School Ground Greening Janet Dyment Lakehead University Australia Citation: Dyment, Janet. “Response to Review of Gaining Ground: The Power and Potential of School Ground Greening.” Children, Youth and Environments 15(2), 2005. The reviewer of Gaining Ground: The Power and Potential of School Ground Greening has done a fine job of highlighting the key points of this report. The review captured some of the key messages, noting the benefits that emerge for students and teachers in terms of curriculum delivery and teaching practices, as well as student learning, behavior, play and environmental awareness. It also noted how the report considers issues of social inclusion, health and safety. Since the launch of Gaining Ground, there have been some positive impacts within both the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and Toronto-based Evergreen. Policy makers, educators, principals, teachers, and parents are making meaning from the findings and using the evidence to move the “cause” of school ground greening forward. But what is particularly heartening is that the report seems to be having farreaching geographical impacts, with positive feedback coming in from countries like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, and Denmark. Academics, practitioners, and policy-makers are finding compelling evidence in Gaining Ground for the systematic benefits of greening initiatives across a large number of schools. A key factor explaining its immediate popularity within policy circles is the presence of quantitative data (e.g., “95 percent of respondents indicated…”). Gaining Ground used a mixed-method approach consisting of questionnaires (with 149 respondents) and 21 interviews with principals, teachers, and parents at 45 schools. Other reports in environmental education circles that have adopted similar mixed-method approaches and emphasize quantitative methods (e.g., Learning through Landscapes 2003; Lieberman and Hoody 1998), are often seen to be “convincing,” “striking,” and “comprehensive” (e.g., Evergreen 2000, p. 5-6, discussing the Lieberman and Hoody report). While I, as a researcher, may decry the hegemony of numbers and see the need to work on educating policy makers, administrators and the general public about 436 the value of other research approaches, at the time of conducting the research in Gaining Ground, it seemed strategic to make use of research strategies that spoke to decision-makers. Nevertheless, I did worry about the ways in which my close collaboration with the TDSB and Evergreen influenced, consciously or not, my research decisions. Further, I worried about falling into the trap identified by Audre Lorde (1984) of trying to use the Master’s tools to dismantle the Master’s house. The popularity of the report has encouraged a new line of research with Evergreen that explores how green school grounds influence the quality and quantity of children’s physical activity at school. This study is timely given the evident inadequacy of opportunities for children to engage in physical activities at home, at school and in the broader community. Put simply: children are sitting more and moving less, with serious health impacts. In response, schools are implementing health promotion interventions to encourage more physical activity. This new research is exploring if and how green school grounds can be part of health promotion initiatives. Conventional design elements such as asphalt, turf and manufactured play equipment offer valuable opportunities for active play in games like basketball, tag, baseball and four-square. Research suggests, however, that these conventional school ground features are limited in promoting physical activity, primarily because many children are not interested in or capable of playing such active, rule-bound games. This is where green school grounds can make an important contribution. They promote different kinds of active play that may appeal to children who tend to be relegated to the sidelines on conventional school grounds. By their design, green school grounds can provide new opportunities to promote moderate physical activity (gardening, sand play, hide-and-seek, role play and so on). In this research, we will examine what promotes or hinders various types of physical activity on the school ground. The research team hopes that a report similar to Gaining Ground will emerge from this study. Janet Dyment is completing her Ph.D...

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