Green Space' at School May Help Kids Learn
Expert says findings bolster the case for parks, playgrounds
By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, June 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Children's thinking skills may develop faster if they encounter "green space" such as parks and woods in their day-to-day lives, a new study suggests.
Green space at school, in particular, was linked to improved brain development among schoolchildren in Spain.
"Children at schools with more green space around them, such as trees, shrubs and grass, have a better brain development than children at schools with less green space," said study co-author Mark Nieuwenhuijsen of the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona.
"It is important to have green space within and around the school grounds for better brain development," he added.
It's possible that something other than green space is affecting the kids' intellectual prowess, and the apparent link may be purely coincidental.
But one expert not involved with the study said other benefits of fresh air and playgrounds are already known.
"We know that living in neighborhoods with more green space has been associated with improved mental health in adults and kids," said Kristen Malecki, assistant professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "It also is associated with many positive health behaviors, such as physical activity."
But proving a direct connection has been difficult. "It's still unclear why and how these associations exist, and if greenness itself is causing the improved health and mental health," Malecki said.
In the new study, researchers tracked nearly 2,600 Barcelona schoolchildren, aged 7 to 10, for a year to see how their memory and attention -- so-called cognitive skills -- developed. The children were tested every three months.
The researchers looked for possible connections between development of thinking skills and green space -- defined as any space with vegetation -- around their home, their school and on their commute to school.
The investigators found that students with more exposure to green space made greater gains -- about 5 to 6 percent in terms of working memory and 1 percent in attentiveness -- compared to children surrounded by less green space. Working memory -- the ability to sort and retain short-term information -- is essential for learning skills such as math and reading.
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