Schoolyard stewardship

A green schoolyard is a multifunctional, nature-rich environment. They are designed for play, learning, exploration, and growth. Activities in gardens can encourage students to waste less food, reduce pollution and litter, and grasp how organic materials decompose and nature filters pollutants. Maintaining sustainable schoolyards and incorporating them into school activities improves health and academic performance. Green spaces also foster ecologically diverse learning environments.

Criteria for recognition

Schools

• Conduct a baseline Waste Walk Through (WWT) at least every 2 years. Use the information to set goals.
• Promote your school and/or district campus beautification plans. If none exists, work with administration, faculty, and staff to develop an outdoor space that supports food systems, composting, managing stormwater, and a litter-free environment. Your plan may include:
• Ongoing professional development for facilitating outdoor education
• Facilitating a school-wide challenge to take classes outdoors for science, art, reading, physical education, etc.
• Purchasing native and/or drought-tolerant plants for landscaping
• Installing a pollinator garden, rain garden or schoolyard habitat
• Complete a schoolyard stewardship activity or student project. These activities may include:  
• Establishing a pollinator garden or schoolyard habitat project
• Planning school garden activities or lessons with students
• Creating a trail system through the existing schoolyard
• Installing a rain garden
• Replacing grass with drought-resistant native plants on school grounds
• Conducting a pollution and litter prevention activity where students clean up the school grounds and share litter prevention education
• Share at least 1 way you’re educating all students and staff about schoolyard stewardship efforts with your program representative.
• Share at least 1 success from your stewardship efforts with your program representative.
• Optional: Share your other schoolyard stewardship actions.

Districts

Districts can find recognition criteria for the Climate: Energy & Transportation Benchmark in the District Benchmark Guide.

Recognition form

Schools

Fill out the School Schoolyard Stewardship recognition form. You may fill out the form to receive your benchmark badge at any time of year!
You can complete the recognition form over multiple sessions using the "Save" button. You will be emailed a link that allows you to continue filling out the form. Once the form is complete, select the "Submit" button.

Districts

Fill out the District Schoolyard Stewardship recognition form. Districts may fill out the form and receive the benchmark badge in the spring of each school year.

Schoolyard stewardship resources and activities

• Step-by-step guide to designing, creating and maintaining schoolyard habitats
• Guide to creating school gardens as outdoor learning spaces
• Pollinator site assessment form
• Developing a pollinator garden in western Washington
• Storm water assessment guide & rain garden set-up
• Purdue University Extension garden curriculum
• Pacific Northwest growing guide

Interested in learning more? Check out our resource list for more detailed information on this benchmark topic.

Success stories

Sixth graders at TAF@Saghalie in the Federal Way School District learned how native plants benefit water conservation. As a project, they replaced a large section of grass with a native plant garden. They also completed projects for the STEM Expo on how to harvest rainwater to water the garden.

This year students at Carnation Elementary School in the Riverview School District created a native plant garden.  The garden replaced an unused grass patch near the portables on campus. The school received donated compost, plants, and soil from the community. The PTSA provided a grant for gravel to make an ADA compliant pathway through the garden. The Riverview Education Foundation funded educational supplies for students to use like shovels, pH test strips, temperature readers, soil samplers, and moisture meters.

The Green Knights at Camelot Elementary School in Federal Way and their families attended a workshop to learn about native plants on the school property. They learned about the importance of the plants to Indigenous tribal groups and how to pass on their knowledge. Students and staff also observed that large Douglas Fir trees had been cut down along the school’s fence. This created more sunlight where there used to be shade. Students mapped out and observed the area to decide on the best spot for planting new native plants. Finally, students and staff restored the pathways of their south forest with woodchips. They gave a tour of their newly renovated pathways to Governor Jay Inslee!