Fwd: The one thing education policy keeps ignoring
Wendy Nadherny Fachon
From: Kate Howlett from Natural Connection <howlettk+nat...@substack.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Subject: The one thing education policy keeps ignoring
To: <storywal...@gmail.com>
The one thing education policy keeps ignoringIt's not tech, AI or discipline—it's trees
This is part of my Nature Deep Dive series in which I unpack the science behind nature connection. Research is often inaccessible because of jargon and assumptions of prior knowledge. This shouldn’t be the case. Everyone has the right to know what we know. Knowledge is power, after all. AI can’t interpret and contextualise research for you, but I can. That’s why I read science papers that won’t make it into the media but should, so you don’t have to. Dear friends, Where do you feel most productive? I don’t mean productive in the sense of accomplishing a to do list. I mean in the sense of having an unbothered mind that is free to wander, be creative, maybe read or think—the spaces you can reliably visit to get that thing done that requires peace and quiet and actual thinking. For me, these spaces are invariably outside, or inside but looking out at plants, trees and the sky, at nature moving about at its own gentle pace. You can read about the psychological theory behind why this works here:
Now, have a think about the spaces where you really struggle to think clearly. For me, these are when I’m boxed in—windowless rooms with clutter and noise. Cast your mind back to school. Which of these spaces did your school resemble more? I’ll let that sink in. If you are lucky enough to have gone to a school that resembled a beautiful park, do you think you would have been as engaged with your learning if you hadn’t? This month, I’m unpacking a science paper that asks whether trees can improve children’s learning. Yes, really. This kind of stuff is so often dismissed as ‘woo-woo’ thinking. But there is real science to back up the positive effects of trees on academic performance. Let me show you.
‘Tree cover and species composition effects on academic performance of primary school students ’This paper came out a few months before I started my PhD. I remember reading it and subsequently freaking out that my research had already been done and what was I going to do. It hadn’t, of course, this is just an excellent piece of research that sits in the same space as my own. At the time, I thought this was bound to lead to a flurry of studies asking similar questions, since it was obvious to me how important this was. Here we are seven years later, and it remains a unique approach. I’ll take you through what they did. What did the researchers do?The scientists looked at 387 elementary schools in Toronto, Canada. This is a healthy sample size—love it. They collected data on academic performance, external challenges that might affect education (like family income) and trees. Academic performanceTo make sure this information was exactly the same across all schools, they used standardised governmental data on student performance. For each school, they collected the percentage of students who were at or above the expected standard for writing, reading and maths. So we’re not talking about advanced or extra-curricular stuff here—this is looking at the bare basics of what schools should be providing. External challenges to learningTo measure the external challenges faced by students that might affect their education, they tapped into the Toronto District School Boards’s learning opportunity index (LOI). All this means is that they used a pre-existing measure that was the same for all schools in Toronto. This index takes into account lots of relevant factors: median income of the area, percentage of families whose income is below the low-income measure (before taxes), percentage of families receiving social assistance, adults with low education, adults with university degrees, lone-parent families and students with English as a second language. They also collected standard socioeconomic data for each school’s neighbourhood: population, the number of children, average household income, educational level of adults and proportion of visible minorities. The reason the scientists collected all of this social information, in addition to just academic performance and trees, is so they could guarantee that it was, in fact, the trees that were affecting kids’ learning and not any of these other factors.
TreesUsing satellite imagery, they worked out, for each school, the total land area, total outside area not covered by trees (grass and shrubs, for example) and the percentage of outside space covered by trees. Handily for this study, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) had collaborated with the Faculty of Forestry at the nearby University of Toronto to build a tree inventory of 20,639 trees in Toronto. This inventory didn’t just list all these trees. It included information on tree location, species, tree size (i.e., diameter at breast height, tree height and crown width) and tree condition (i.e., tree lean, poor branch attachment, stem rot, tree defoliation and crown form). It is wild that this resource exists! All of this information about trees meant that the researchers could really dig down into what features of trees are affecting academic performance-—really important for valuing, protecting and improving, and for persuading others that trees matter. What did they find?Unsurprisingly, academic performance was massively affected by external challenges. In data terms, the higher the learning opportunity index (so the more external challenges students faced), the lower their test scores. But the trees mattered too. The proportion of tree cover (as distinct from other types of green space, such as grass) was a significant positive predictor of student performance, accounting for 13% of the variance explained in a statistical model that predicted mean student test scores. What this means, in layman’s terms, is that, if you look at all the variation you find in children’s academic test scores for writing, reading and maths, the biggest chunk of this can be explained by their socioeconomic context. But 13% of this variation was down to the percentage of their school covered by trees. More specifically, the higher the percentage of a school covered by trees, the higher the test scores.
Drilling down into all of that detailed information they collected on trees, with the help of the Faculty of Forestry and that fantastic tree inventory, it seems that tree cover had the most positive impact on writing, while tree species composition had the greatest effect on maths. The last of their findings, I think is the most telling. These beneficial educational effects of trees were the most pronounced in schools facing the greatest level of external challenges. For those of you who have been reading my Nature Deep Dive pieces for a while, you will recognise this as a bit of a developing theme. A paper I focused on back in August also found that the benefits of nature are greatest for those in lower income brackets, as did the paper I focused on last month. You can read both of these below:
Why do we care?I care about this paper a lot. I care about it because the potential benefits we stand to unlock for our kids here are vast. We know how important trees and natural spaces are for wellbeing, mental health, physical health, attention, behaviour and mood, and here is a paper extending these benefits to learning outcomes. For those of us already aware of the benefits of nature, it stands perfectly to reason that if kids feel better at school, in all of these ways, then of course they will be able to learn better. But this paper proves it. And it’s this kind of data that gets governments and people who make important decisions to listen.
Yet, the benefits of nature to learning are still quite fringe in education research and training. My partner works in education, and he regularly mentions my work to colleagues. It’s generally met with complete surprise. This makes me sad. The authors of the paper summarise perfectly why this work, if acted on, could unlock such huge benefits:
Spread the word. Full credit to the authors of this paper: Sivajanani Sivarajah, Sandy M. Smith and Sean C. Thomas. If you would like to read the full paper, click here. If you want to learn more about the science behind why nature is good for us, would you consider upgrading to paid or buying me a coffee? It allows me to keep writing.
© 2025 Kate Howlett
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Deborah Vine-Smith
Wendy:Back in February 2019, I sent these websites to the Cumberland School Superintendent and a couple of members of the School Committee, etc: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-02/documents/best_practices_at_schools_flyer_0.pdf, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/pollution-from-traffic-harms-kids-academic-performance, which mentions, "As students transitioned into a downwind middle or high school from an elementary or middle school in the same zip code, the researchers observed decreases in test scores, more behavioral incidents, and more absences compared to students who transition to an upwind school" and https://publicintegrity.org/environment/the-invisible-hazard-afflicting-thousands-of-schools/.This was sent to the Chair of the Health & Wellness SChool Committee in November 2019: In this article https://www.ecori.org/public-safety/2019/11/1/intersection-of-schools-and-highways-produces-bad-air you will find, ....."Rhode Island technically has restrictions on where schools can be built, with the Rhode Island Department of Education’s School Building Authority construction regulations stating that project sites must have a minimum separation of 1,500 feet “from railroad tracks, hazardous pipelines, and major highways.”"_____________________________________________________________-These might have been sent to them too as I know I have mentioned in correspondence signage at an Attleboro School saying, "No idling" .Mentioning all this in contrast to what you sent, one may say that the trees 🌳🌲🌳🌲functioned as an Air purifier that helped to reduce air pollution near their schools.Lastly, when I substituted in North Attleboro, Elementary students had two recesses!Deborah Vine-Smith
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