Environmental Education

Access to parks provides children with learning opportunities that are crucial to their future success and healthy development. Yet, most of today's youth are less connected to nature than ever before. Free time outside playing and exploring their natural surroundings has been replaced with greater interaction with the digital world. In many communities, children simply do not have access to parks that are clean and safe. The impact on children is great—their creativity and capacity to learn suffer.  

For many children, traditional classrooms alone aren’t effective settings for learning. Parks enhance the classroom experience by teaching children how to interact and cooperate with their peers, critical life skills for academic and professional achievement.  Exposure to the outdoors improves analytical thinking, making students better problem-solvers in math and science. The hands-on learning experience provided through city parks is especially critical during the summer for children who would not otherwise have access to outdoor resources, and can help close the educational achievement gap. These opportunities have also been especially beneficial in the educational development of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and other learning disabilities. 

To Protect and Conserve

City parks are valuable resources offering numerous educational programs that bring together community members of diverse ages, ethnic backgrounds, and economic status to learn from one another. Through park-based programs, children and their families become active participants in community development, citizenship, and democratic processes. While all residents gain knowledge about parks' value, youth especially build leadership skills and become more involved in civic life, while gaining greater cross-cultural understanding. These local green spaces prepare them for life-long environmental stewardship.

Parks protect and conserve artifacts, ecosystems, and places of historical and cultural importance. If not for parks, treasured pieces of history and culture would be lost or forgotten. They are repositories for our common heritage.


Sources:
Researching the Child-Nature Connection, A White Paper Prepared by Nicole L. Migliarese for the California State Parks' Children in Nature Campaign, March 2008

How Cities Use Parks to Help Children Learn, City Parks Forum Briefing Papers 06