Danielsaurus

School Playgrounds Yield Better Math Students

A recent Boston University study (whose efforts initially emerged out of the Boston Schoolyard Initiative, a public-private partnership established in the mid-1990s to restore Boston’s playgrounds) considers the important role of environment and play in education, examining whether better school playgrounds have an impact on student achievement.

“I really wasn’t expecting to find anything,” says Russell Lopez, a School of Public Health assistant professor of Environmental Health, citing the relatively small sample of schools. “I thought, even if there is a real effect, there are so few schools involved that it doesn’t have a lot of statistical power.”

When Lopez studied the 2003 results of the fourth-grade English language MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System), standardized tests that almost all public school students must take, he saw no discernible differences between children at the 70 schools with new playgrounds and children at schools with old playgrounds.

But when he looked at math scores, he saw a very different picture. In schools where fourth graders had new playgrounds, 25 percent more kids passed the math MCAS. And that remained true after he and his team controlled for factors such as demographics and the number of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches.

The researchers suggest several reasons for the association between better schoolyards and improved test scores. It may be that students at schools with upgraded playgrounds get more physical activity, which may make them more willing and able to learn once they’re back at their desks. It could also be the result of more parental involvement in the schools. Or, Lopez says, “It could be that students and teachers feel better about going to schools that are not dreary, jail-like settings and that look more inviting. That might set up people to want to learn.”

While Lopez acknowledges the limitations of his ecological study, I believe we’d do well as a society to consider education from a more holistic perspective. Lopez seems to think so, too:

Lopez believes his findings are particularly important at a time when the slumping economy is forcing schools across the nation to tighten their belts. “I worry that the first thing that gets cut is the outdoor space,” he says. “There are a lot of people who think that it’s not important, that all kids need is reading, writing, and arithmetic. And I think what this shows is that getting kids to learn is a broader experience. How places look and how they’re used are as important as what goes on in the classroom.”