School grounds across the UK add up to an area equivalent to a new national park. In Scotland alone, school grounds account for an area the size of Dundee city and make up 14% of the land owned by local authorities.

Many of our school buildings and grounds were not designed and built with the need to adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Currently 84% of existing school grounds are hard surfacing or maintained grass, both of which offer little mitigation against a changing climate. 

The school campus is also a place where our children spend significant amounts of time, for play and learning. They provide the opportunity for ‘living laboratories’ as part of a quality climate education for all children and young people. Learners are afforded the opportunity to make changes related to many aspects of climate change, biodiversity, and air quality, moving from climate protest to climate action. 

Our schools also form the centre of our communities, both geographically and socially. Changes to schools grounds can inspire and benefit all in our communities with regards to taking action on climate change. At present, there are few practical resources on how schools, local authorities, and landscape architects can develop a new approach to using our school grounds as we now experience our changing climate. 

We have drawn together (and will continue to develop) key resources which will assist both schools and design professionals to focus on a few relevant areas related to developing climate ready schools. 

The Climate Ready School Grounds project was a year long project and partnership between Architecture & Design Scotland and Learning through Landscapes. Our aim was to draw together existing knowledge, start our journey to developing more, and to engage with pupils and schools to pilot our approach. 

The project worked with 3 schools across Scotland, representing three very different communities and physical school sites. The team at LtL and A&DS worked with each school to undertake workshops full of practical ideas to develop understanding of our six ‘technical areas’. 

At the same time, the project learned about pupils understanding and views on climate change. We learned that there are significant opportunities here, and what the priorities are around developing Climate Ready School Grounds and supporting changes in how we develop and use those spaces. 

During the year we also researched and collated related resources, connected with similar projects around the world and learned about the role that landscape can play in mitigating for a changing climate.

The School Grounds Climate Survey is designed to stimulate discussion and awareness around developing a climate ready school ground. Completing the survey with your pupils will highlight resources which can help you develop your space to be more climate resilient while also providing a rich curricular linked learning opportunity.

There are two versions of the School Grounds Climate Survey available to download: a digital version and a PDF version. The digital version is an Excel spreadsheet which will produce graphs to help identify priority areas for your school grounds based on the results you input. You can enter your results directly into the digital version of the survey using a tablet, or complete the survey on paper before entering the results back in the classroom.