From the Athens Banner- Herald on Friday, June 12, 2009: ‘Having green space around schools doesn’t just make the campus look better – students actually score better on tests when they can see trees and gardens outside their classroom windows, a University of Georgia professor has found.
“It’s hard to explain,” said Kenneth Tanner, head of the School Design and Planning Laboratory in the University of Georgia’s College of Education.
But research clearly shows that students who can look out at greenery do better on math, reading and some other achievement tests than students with views of walls and parking lots, said Tanner, who’s been studying the effects of school design on student achievement for more than a decade.
Tanner has his own theories on why looking at trees is better than looking at concrete.
“It’s this feeling of wellbeing,” a feeling that people get from looking at natural areas, he said. “If I’m looking into a wall I feel like I’m being blocked.”
Tanner’s most recent research examined the test scores of more than 10,000 Georgia fifth-graders. Even when Tanner statistically ruled out the effects of family income and other variables, the positive effects of natural window views stood out.’
For more research regarding trees and inner city kids doing better in schools, communities with lower violence rates because of trees and a variety of other studies that show how trees and landscape contribute to healthy populations visit the University of Illinois at Urbana’s website for a number of studies they have done. SPROUT!
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