TreePeople has long believed in greening educational spaces: access to green space gives students a place to play and develop creative problem solving skills. Plus, research has shown a strong correlation between access to nature and better cognitive function, self-discipline, and impulse control, and suggests that greener campuses may help improve student attention spans. And at the very root of it, healthier school campuses mean healthier students, and the more trees and plants students have around them, the more likely they are to understand and respect our urban forest.

We don’t just believe that educational spaces ought to be greener; we also get out onto campuses across Los Angeles and make it happen. We’ve teamed up with schools and organizations to help enrich student environments by planting trees and educational gardens, installing rainwater capture systems, and working to implement environmental education programs.

Recently, we teamed up with The Compton Initiative for their quarterly work day. Together, we cared for trees on not one, but two school campuses, helping ensure that Compton’s schools have the green spaces that will enable students to learn and flourish!