Today, the Los Angeles Unified School District has a goal of converting at least 30 percent of every schoolyard to green space, a years-long project that it expects to cost $3 billion. By its own estimate, about 475 schools do not meet that standard and, of them, more than 200 elementary schools have less than 10 percent green space. This analysis does not include school parking lots or truck delivery areas — paved surfaces that are likely to remain that way and raise the temperature around schools.
Webster, after years of waiting, is now on the list of schools to be renovated by the Trust for Public Land. The nonprofit will work with a class of third-graders and landscape architects for the next year to design a new schoolyard. Projects like this can take two to three years to complete, at a cost ranging from $400,000 to as much as $2.5 million, said Danielle Denk, who directs the organization’s schoolyard transformation work. In Philadelphia, most of the money for these projects comes from the water department, which is trying to make the city more capable of absorbing storm runoff.
I went to school in CA for a year and a half. In all the states I've also gone to school, that was the only place with blacktop as the school yard. Strange for such large expanses without turf.
Please don't take my comment as a light-hearted jab at the idea of school shooters. But rather, it's a scathing commentary on fixing something like parking lots when children are dying. Maybe I didn't do a good job of it but that was my intent.
This is awesome. Might even be really engaging for green-minded students if they are given the opportunity to participate in the greening, or any gardening, or maintenance etc. They should also all install apiaries, and teach beekeeping
This will be beautiful. One downside is that it will need more maintenance costs, i.e. you can't just walk away from it for years at a time, especially if it were somewhere that poison ivy could start to grow. But definitely an uplifting positive direction to be heading in!:-)
I mean you could.
My wife's school usually let's the outside of her class become a forest before they chop it all down like every two years. Mainly because they don't have a landscaper and just equip a janitor with a weed Wacker
That's still effort every other year. Tbf I don't know what all is involved in "maintenance" of concrete - I presumed that one could ignore it far easier, but I have nothing with which to back that up:-).
They can still exist they'll have dedicated areas. Super common to see on a school yard. The overall issue is massive areas of black top not small basketball courts
In Philadelphia, most of the money for these projects comes from the water department, which is trying to make the city more capable of absorbing storm runoff.
I guess the water dept knows what they're getting into.