Grounds for health: the intersection of green school grounds and health‐promoting schools

Abstract

Despite the growing body of research on green school grounds, relatively little has been written about their relationship with health promotion, particularly from a holistic health perspective. It is this relationship that we explore in this paper – the power and potential of green school grounds to promote health and well‐being and to be an integral element of multifaceted, school‐based health promotion strategies. Specifically, we bring together recent research to examine green school grounds as places where the interests of educators and children’s health advocates can meet, inform and support one another. By grounding our comments in recent thinking about health‐promoting schools, we highlight the growing body of evidence that green school grounds, as a school setting, can contribute to children’s physical, mental, social and spiritual well‐being.