Welcome
Our Mission
The San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance serves children and families of San Francisco by promoting and supporting green schoolyards.We provide resources, training, and advocacy to school communities to help them create and sustain outdoor learning environments.
What is the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance?
The SFGSA is a regional support network for school communities working to transform their schoolyards into vibrant outdoor classrooms and thriving ecosystems. We advocate for greening at the school site, District, City, and Statewide level; we provide professional development for teachers and parents; we secure horticultural supplies and other resources for schools; and we maintain a website and hotline for advice and troubleshooting needs.
Vote to Support SF Green Schoolyards!
Pepsi’s Refresh Everything Grant Provides Unique Opportunity
Thanks to the collaboration between Pepsi and Good Magazine, numerous countrywide projects will be awarded with grants ranging from $5,000 to $250,000 this year. By submitting a request to green and reforest local schools, the SF Green Schoolyard Alliance hopes to be one of the lucky winners.
We are hoping you’ll take a minute to create an account (no spam) and vote for our proposal DAILY during the month of August. If you are able, please consider texting your support as well. You can also easily promote our work via Twitter, Facebook, or any other newfangled Web 2.0 medium thanks to the tools available on our proposal’s website. Find all the info right here. Please Vote!
Why Green School Grounds?
We believe that the environment that surrounds children as they learn is vital to how they perceive the world around them. Paved schoolyards are often chaotic environments that leave children with few opportunities for creative play and very little shade. Asphalt-covered schoolyards frequently make up a large portion of a school’s domain, yet they are rarely used for educational activities.
Green schoolyards can substantially change the appearance of a school and its ecological impact on the surrounding community, as shown in the pictures below. With colorful plantings and creative use of space, green schoolyards offer expanded educational and recreational opportunities, shady nooks for teachers and students, and refuges for wild birds, butterflies, and other creatures. These outdoor learning and play environments can be great assets for the schools that invest the time and money to plan and build them. (Written by Sharon Danks, SFGSA Founding Board Member)
FAQs
Is a “green schoolyard” the same thing as a school garden?
A school garden is often a component of a larger green schoolyard. SFUSD green schoolyards might consist of a pond or water feature, a native garden, a food-system garden, solar panels, rainwater cisterns, and other ecologically appropriate teaching tools.
What can children learn in a green schoolyard?
A green schoolyard can offer children hands-on opportunities to learn about plants and animals (biology), the relationship between the seasons and weather, the sun and the earth (geology/environment), about the interrelationships between living things in the garden (ecology), about how to grow food and flowers and care for a garden (gardening/horticulture) and about how prepare food grown in the garden (cooking/nutrition). In addition, the green schoolyard is an outdoor classroom for the teaching of state education content standards.
What would I find in a green schoolyard?
Green schoolyards come in many sizes and forms, but certain features are common: a variety of accessible paths, varied habitats, a gathering place where an entire class can work together, seating areas for individuals and small groups, shade structures, flower and vegetable gardens, composting bins, and creative features such as murals, mosaics and paving stones created by children. One might also find a sundial, a weather station, a greenhouse, a labyrinth, birdhouses and bird feeders, or a chicken coop or rabbit hutch.
How do green schoolyards help the environment?
Green schoolyards are created in an environmentally sustainable manner:gardens are maintained organically, some school lunch waste may go toward supporting a worm bin, gardens feature native plants that are easy to care for and require less water, plants are chosen to favor local birds and butterflies. Asphalt is removed allowing natural rainfall to soak into the soil and nurture plants and animals rather than becoming storm water run-off. And most importantly, the city-dwelling children who spend time in a green schoolyard learn about nature, their local ecology, and are introduced to the values of stewardship.
Who maintains the green schoolyard?
The children, teachers, parent and community volunteers all have roles in maintaining the green schoolyard. In addition, most schools with green schoolyards employ a part-time garden teacher or coordinator to help the teachers design science projects and to work directly with the children in the garden.
How are green schoolyard projects in the public schools in San Francisco funded?
Historically, projects were funded entirely through parent association funds and private donations. A 2003 and 2006 facilities upgrade school bond provided public funding for design and construction of green schoolyards at forty five SFUSD elementary schools.
Do many public schools in San Francisco have some kind of green schoolyard space?
Yes, an increasing number of schools, from the pre-K level up to high school have green school yards. Presently, over 75 SFUSD school sites have some kind of school garden.
This FAQ sheet was in part written by Lynn Fuller, a parent at Sherman Elementary School