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Continue to keep people informed about what you are doing. The ongoing promotion of your project will help to ensure its long-term success. It will also help other schools garner support for their own school grounds project.
Monitoring social effects
Monitor and evaluate the effects of transforming the school grounds on the school community. Keep people informed about positive changes in behaviour among children in the schoolyard during recesses and lunch breaks. You can also report reductions in the number of accidents on the playground that can be attributed to improving the school grounds. The information you gathered during the surveys will be useful for measuring and evaluating the changes. The results can also be used when applying for additional funding.
Record the changes to the physical environment. People in the future will want to know how your project began and when and how the changes to the environment were made and by whom.
Monitoring and recording biodiversity on the school grounds
Your school grounds greening projects will enhance local biodiversity. It is important to monitor and record all the ecological improvements and the increase in biodiversity on the grounds.
Assessing community response
Assess and record the community's use of the grounds after hours that have resulted from the environmental changes. Caretaking staff who work during the evenings, weekends and vacations, neighbours, children in the community and the police can be surveyed to find out whether any changes in use have occurred.
Organizing special events
Organize special events on the school grounds to celebrate the greening projects. Invite neighbours, community volunteers, school board staff, trustees, local politicians and everyone who has supported the grounds improvement activities.
You can use the grounds for fundraising and promotional activities, graduations, picnics, multicultural events, community clean-ups and other school and community events.
Educating in the school grounds
School grounds can be transformed into an invaluable learning resource. It is important to get into the habit of integrating all aspects of planning and developing the grounds into the curriculum. There are many resources available to support the development and use of hands-on outdoor classrooms. Any subject can be taught through school grounds projects and the hands-on approach offers endless opportunities for interdisciplinary learning.
You can share your project with schools that are interested in starting to transform their grounds. You can also exchange experiences, resources and ideas for curriculum activities with other schools that are greening their grounds.
Go to Sharing.
You can share your project, learn about other schools' projects and exchange ideas on how to integrate school grounds activities into the curriculum.