The high temperatures this October leave children in the Canary Islands without school, after there have been fainting spells and episodes of heat stroke. The decision of the Government of the Canary Islands advances the future development of a protocol to act in future episodes of high temperatures. In the midst of a climate emergency, solutions are being sought. In Valencia, three schools (Ballester Fandos, Teodoro Llorente and Vivers) verified how green areas help lower the temperature in their playground, since the average temperature values during school hours between eleven and four in the afternoon were 5 .3 degrees of difference between the patio sensor and another located in the classroom.
“It is increasingly internalized, because we are seeing that the increase in temperatures has an influence and when the climate emergency is discussed, we are also beginning to talk about focusing on interventions in educational centers,” says Isabel González, architect and partner. from the Fent Estudi cooperative, coordinator of the Natural[ment] project. El pati renaturalitzat as a catalyst for ecosocial change, a collective innovation work that is part of the Missions València 2030 strategy and has the support of Las Naves and the Valencia City Council.
The date is marked on the calendar. From November 13 to 17, this school in Malvarrosa de València will paralyze activity that week to focus on a project from which they hope to learn as much or more than from the books they open every day. The week before, construction machinery will have chipped the asphalt to lift it, since the project proposal involves earthworks, activities, workshops... It will be a week of collective work that will be developed by the center, one of those that are applying innovative pedagogical methodologies in Infant and Primary and that are closely linked to the renaturalization of the playground.
The renaturalization of the patio will be another pillar within the transformation that the center is working on to become “a globally sustainable school,” as its director, Vicent Ripoll, says. Until now, they were focused on four avenues: ecological school gardens; an energy saving project with awareness; recycling; and the creation of a supportive energy community with which the center will be self-sufficient and will donate surpluses to families with energy vulnerability.
“We lack places with good conditions to work in the yard and to be able to do other areas that require more concentration. We do not have an attractive patio to do different things that invite us to do them. It is an old playground, without spaces to develop imagination, free play, conversation, symbolic play or other physical abilities other than football or basketball,” explains the coordinator of the CEIP educational research and innovation project Ballester Fandos. , José Carrasco.
Carrasco defends the benefits that the renaturalization of the playground has for the students, such as “the use of active methodologies that encourage speech, reasoning, research and that are open to working outside the classroom”; “bring students closer to nature, with all the direct learning it has”; or “do and design different activities that encourage individual and collective thinking to solve a challenge.” Likewise, he believes that “working in an environment outside the classroom helps to assimilate new concepts in an easier way, because everything that is practiced, reasoned and manipulated is learned, while the things that are studied are not manipulated.” and they are far away from the students, they forget.”
Fent Estudi's proposal comes after having won an Innovation award promoted by the Department of Innovation, until the last legislature in the hands of Compromís. "In Valencia the network of school gardens has helped a lot, it is a project that centers have been joining because there is a garden culture here, but in general we are going very slowly compared to what is already being done in other cities, such as Barcelona or Paris "explains Isabel González.
In València, the School Garden Network has been operating since 2017, of which 43 centers are part, Primary and Early Childhood but also Secondary and promoted by the Education Area of the Valencia City Council. However, the latest survey detected that there are more than a hundred similar gardens, in which they mainly apply organic farming criteria and are mostly energized by the work of the teachers.
This renaturalization trend has already been observed in Valencia in recent years in playground projects in which natural materials are included and plastic is dispensed with. A commitment to green that has also occurred in the major transformations of public spaces, such as Plaza de la Reina or the still pending San Agustín or City Hall projects, whose project the change of local government now leaves in question.
Less asphalt and more dirt and sand is the trend followed by proposals such as those promoted from Catalonia by Carme Cols and Pitu Fernàndez, retired teachers who collaborate with educational centers, or Heike Freire, pedagogue and author of Educate in Green. Ideas to bring boys and girls closer to nature (2011) or the most recent Patios Vivos to renaturalize the school (2019).
Experts wonder if boys and girls are allowed to play outdoors enough and if they have the possibility of learning about the environment and nature at school, but also in the spaces they inhabit every day. At Ballester Fandos they believe that a patio full of asphalt and with a soccer field occupying a good part of its surface as they have now does not provide the same play as one with a garden, trees, dirt, various games or reading space. In November they get to work.
