Schoolyards Shape Childhood.

They influence how children move, connect, play, learn, and experience belonging every day. For better or for worse.

Schoolyards have the potential to be children's most accessible opportunity for play, sport, physical activity, social connection, and contact with nature. Yet despite their importance, these spaces often remain overlooked, underdesigned, and underfunded within broader conversations about education, health, and child development.

At a time of rising mental health challenges, climate concerns, declining free play, and growing inequities in access to recreation and nature, schoolyards have become increasingly important spaces for children's health. Schoolyards for Thought is an interdisciplinary initiative focused on reimagining schoolyards as essential infrastructure for belonging, well-being, equity, learning, and human development. We collaborate with educators, researchers, designers, policymakers, organizations, and communities to think differently about the environments shaping childhood — and the role these spaces can play in creating more inclusive, healthy, sustainable, and connected futures.