By Carolyn Gregoire (2015) Children today spend less time outdoors than ever before -- and it may be detrimental not only to their physical health, but also to their cognitive development. A yearlong study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that elementary school children who were exposed to more green spaces within or directly outside their school showed improved learning and memory. The findings reinforce that of a recent six-year study on 905 Massachusetts public elementary schools, which found that students in schools that had more "greenness" in their surroundings reported higher scores on standardized testing in English and math.
