On a recent Saturday morning at Washington Elementary Stem magnet school in Pasadena, California, a group of volunteers and staffers from Amigos de los Rios hauled soil for a new pollinator garden of native plants that support local habitats such as those for butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. They also filled up 37 planter beds that will grow fresh veggies such as carrots and sweet potatoes for students to eat.
Before the local non-profit began this work, the Title I school – which is primarily attended by Latino and Black students from low-income households – had been largely paved, lacked trees and had one wooden playhouse that kids would patiently wait their turn to play inside to take refuge from the sun.
They have created an outdoor classroom with smooth boulders for seating under the shade of a giant oak tree, installed a rain garden and removed portions of heat-absorbing asphalt in favor of drought-tolerant plants with layers of mulch. They planted 26 climate-resilient trees (with more to come) and added log stump seats, three new playhouses and colorful designs painted on the ground.
Parks, trees and other green spaces are critical to children’s health and wellbeing, but in areas such as Los Angeles county, there is unequal access for millions of its residents.
Roughly 20% of the city’s total canopy is concentrated in five primarily white and affluent census blocks that are home to just 1% of the city’s population. Statewide, more than 2.5 million students attend schools where less than 5% of their campuses are covered with tree canopy – a far cry from the 30% to 50% of shaded coverage recommended by urban forestry and climate experts that would help protect kids from extreme heat. This disparity in tree cover is no accident, but the result of redlining, decades of environmental injustice and other racist policies in urban neighborhoods.
Groups like Amigos de los Rios are trying to close the gap. “[Green spaces] make a huge difference in what you become and what’s available to you,” said managing director Claire Robinson, who founded Amigos de los Rios in 2003 to serve and address environmental disparities on the eastside of Los Angeles county.
Under Robinson’s leadership, the group, which is named for the nearby Rio Hondo and San Gabriel rivers, has “greened” about 30 schools in LA area communities, many of which have been directly affected by the recent Eaton fire. In January, the non-profit lost their offices in the blaze and Robinson and other staffers saw their homes destroyed, tragic losses that underscore the importance of their work as climate change intensifies wildfires, hot days and storm events.
“Climate change is not going away and kids were already inside last year for so many days because of excessive heat warnings,” said Robinson, who noted that the petroleum-based asphalt used at many public schools can reach temperatures of 160 to 170 degrees on hot days.
Children are especially vulnerable to heat-induced health impacts, such as dehydration, heat rash, heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Rising temperatures can also impact academic performance: One study showed that students’ exposure to hot days, above 27C (80F), reduced exam performance among New York City public high school students, which also affected graduation rates.
Research predicts that two-thirds of the US will experience double the number of 100-degree days by mid-century. But trees offer a simple solution. In addition to cooling our cities by up to 10 degrees, trees reduce particulate pollution, which is a major contributor to asthma, cool play equipment, help protect kids from UV rays, absorb stormwater and lower air conditioning costs for schools. Other studies have shown that green schools and access to nature reduce stress, encourage physical activity and alleviate mental fatigue.
They are also a key part of young people’s futures: a recent USC study showed that LA’s urban trees are absorbing more carbon than expected.
“Green space doesn’t just support childhood development – it supercharges it,” said Dan Lambe, CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to planting trees.
Even compared with other city kids, those in LA are especially deprived of green spaces, with only 36% of children in Los Angeles countywide living within one-quarter mile of a park, compared with 91% in New York and 85% in San Francisco, according to the Conservation Fund. Inspired by the nearly 100-year-old plan to create more than 200,000 acres of parks in LA, Robinson’s vision is to create what’s been called the Emerald Necklace: an interconnected network of green spaces, schools, parks and trails that stretch from the San Gabriel national forest to the Pacific Ocean.
Efforts to address tree equity and shade justice have been building for years and the city has been lauded as leading the urban planting revolution with groups such as TreePeople, Koreatown Youth + community center and North East Trees helping to add thousands of trees to the city’s canopy each year.
And it’s not just LA; there are similar groups undertaking urban greening efforts throughout California and the rest of the US.
Tree Pittsburgh helps protect their urban forest via tree planting and care, education and land conservation. “Trees are the positive antithesis of TikTok,” said Jonathan Fantazier, a former teacher who manages Tree Pittsburgh’s One Tree Per Child program, which gives students a hands-on experience that instills a sense of pride and environmental responsibility. “Kids today hear a bird singing on a phone screen before they see a real bird singing.”
Since 70% of the world’s population are expected to be living in cities by 2050, today’s urban greening efforts are critical for a resilient future.
Over the last 10 years, Fantazier has noticed Pittsburgh schools having to close on hot days since older buildings don’t have air conditioning. He has also seen closures due to water issues from storm surges. In Los Angeles, children can also be kept inside because of air quality issues, excessive heat and wildfire smoke.
Although school greening efforts seem like a no-brainer, Amigos de los Rios and other like-minded organizations can encounter pushback from school boards, district lawyers and facilities managers who may not know the difference between a drought-tolerant plant and a weed.
In the Bronx, a New York borough with the highest asthma rates in the state, the non-profit the Bronx is Blooming trains local youth who, with a team of dedicated volunteers, have stewarded more than 20,000 trees at 20-plus parks and green spaces since 2011. In New Mexico, the last major tree-planting effort happened in the 1930s, which means a lot of those trees are dying. Let’s Plant Albuquerque is a community alliance that has a goal of planting 100,000 new trees in the city by 2030.
Today’s children spend less time outdoors than any other generation – less than 10 minutes a day. Journalist and author Richard Louv calls this modern phenomenon “nature deficit disorder”. Urban greening and environmental education can help kids reconnect with nature and reduce the heat island effect that’s commonplace in LA neighborhoods that have lots of paved, heat-absorbing surface (and where Asian, Black and Latino people are more likely to live).
Amigos de los Rios’ Robinson says there isn’t a minute to waste since “we are in this heat issue for good”.
“If it’s 95 degrees outside, you have temperatures that are a significant public health challenge,” said Robinson, who said a lot of students at Title I schools are there all summer. “It’s not hard to plant a tree and create a caring community to take care of the tree. What’s impossible is to condemn people based on where they’re born and not making sure there’s equitable access to green school for everybody.”
