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Are California Elementary School Test Scores More Strongly Associated With Urban Trees Than Poverty?
Figure 1. Model selection results for several common variables for student test performance on a sample of California fifth grade classes. Effect sizes (A) were significant for urban/rural location, % minority representation and % student body on free and reduced lunches. Minority representation (B) showed the strongest signal, with a two SD difference in minorities associated with a 100 point difference in overall test scores. Unprecedented rates of urbanization are changing our understanding of the ways in which children build connections to the natural world, including the importance of educational settings in affecting this relationship. In addition to influencing human-nature connection, greenspace around school grounds has been associated with benefits to students’ cognitive function. Questions remain regarding the size of this benefit relative to other factors, and which features of greenspace are responsible for these effects. We conducted a large-scale correlative study subsampling elementary schools (n = 495) in ecologically, socially and economically diverse California. After controlling for common educational determinants (e.g., socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, student teacher ratio, and gender ratio) we found a significant, positive association between test scores and tree and shrub cover within 750 and 1000 m of urban schools. Tree and shrub cover was not associated with test scores in rural schools or five buffers closer to urban schools (10, 50, 100, 300, and 500 m). Two other greenspace variables (NDVI and agricultural area) were not associated with test performance at any of the analyzed buffer distances for rural or urban schools. Minority representation had the largest effect size on standardized test scores (8.1% difference in scores with 2SD difference in variable), followed by tree and shrub cover around urban schools, which had a large effect size (2.9–3.0% at 750 and 1000 m) with variance from minority representation and socioeconomic status (effect size 2.4%) included. Within our urban sample, average tree-cover schools performed 4.2% (3.9–4.4, and 95% CI) better in terms of standardized test scores than low tree-cover urban schools. Our findings support the conclusion that neighborhood-scale (750–1000 m) urban tree and shrub cover is associated with school performance, and indicate that this element of greenspace may be an important factor to consider when studying the cognitive impacts of the learning environment. These results support the design of experimental tests of tree planting interventions for educational benefits.
Read moreBuilding Healthy Community Environments: A Public Health Approach
A framework for improving community health through better environment decision making. The current state presents baseline health and defines built environmental challenges. The desired state presents public health and environmental goals for a healthy community. The core components of the public health approach are shown indicating the path toward the desired state. Adapted from the World Health Organization. Bulleted items may differ for various communities and applications. Environmental quality has a profound effect on health and the burden of disease. In the United States, the environment-related burden of disease is increasingly dominated by chronic diseases. At the local level, public health practitioners realize that many policy decisions affecting environmental quality and health transcend the authorities of traditional health department programs. Healthy decisions about the built environment, including housing, transportation, and energy, require broad collaborative efforts. Environmental health professionals have an opportunity to address the shift in public health burden toward chronic diseases and play an important role in the design of healthy communities by bringing data and tools to decision makers. This article provides a guide for community leaders to consider the public health effects of decisions about the built environment. We present a conceptual framework that represents a shift from compartmentalized solutions toward an inclusive systems approach that encourages partnership across disciplines and sectors. We discuss practical tools to assist with environmental decision making, such as Health Impact Assessments, environmental public health tracking, and cumulative risk assessment. We also identify priorities in research, practice, and education to advance the role of public health in decision making to improve health, such as the Health Impact Assessment, as a core competency for environmental health practitioners. We encourage cross-disciplinary communication, research, and education that bring the fields of planning, transportation, and energy in closer collaboration with public health to jointly advance the systems approach to today’s environmental challenges.
Read moreGeolocated Social Media as a Rapid Indicator of Park Visitation and Equitable Park Access
Figure 1. Alignment of Census block group, park and park buffer boundaries. The block group boundary in which Central Park is contained includes residential areas bordering the park. When population density within the 400m buffer is averaged over Census block groups, density of the residential areas bordering the park are underestimated due to the inclusion of the park’s area. Understanding why some parks are used more regularly or intensely than others can inform ways in which urban parkland is developed and managed to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding urban population. Although geolocated social media (GSM) indicators have been used to examine park visitation rates, studies applying this approach are generally limited to flagship parks, national parks, or a small subset of urban parks. Here, we use geolocated Flickr and Twitter data to explore variation in use across New York City’s 2143 diverse parks and model visitation based on spatially-explicit park characteristics and facilities, neighborhood-level accessibility features and neighborhood-level demographics. Findings indicate that social media activity in parks is positively correlated with proximity to public transportation and bike routes, as well as particular park characteristics such as water bodies, athletic facilities, and impervious surfaces, but negatively associated with green space and increased proportion of minority ethnicity and minority race in neighborhoods in which parks are located. Contrary to previous studies which describe park visitation as a form of nature-based recreation, our findings indicate that the kinds of green spaces present in many parks may not motivate visitation. From a social equity perspective, our findings may imply that parks in high-minority neighborhoods are not as accessible, do not accommodate as many visitors, and/or are of lower quality than those in low-minority neighborhoods. These implications are consistent with previous studies showing that minority populations disproportionately experience barriers to park access. In applying GSM data to questions of park access, we demonstrate a rapid, big data approach for providing information crucial for park management in a way that is less resource-intensive than field surveys.
Read moreInequality in Access to Cultural Ecosystem Services From Protected Areas in the Chilean Biodiversity Hotspot
Figure 1. Conceptual framework linking ecosystems as service providing areas, cultural ecosystem services and human benefits as supply and demand sides in human–environmental systems (adapted from (Burkhard et al., 2012; Cord et al., 2017). The green and red arrows represent the potential forms of access of the population in the region to the protected areas that we predict will vary according to their socioeconomic characteristics (the thick of the arrow represent population size and the length of the arrow represent the distance travelled along the road network). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) Experiences with nature through visits to protected areas provide important cultural ecosystem services that have the potential to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Understanding accessibility to protected areas and likely preferences for enjoying the benefits of nature visits are key factors in identifying ways to reduce inequality in access and inform the planning and management for future protected areas. We develop, at a regional scale, a novel social media database of visits to public protected areas in part of the Chilean biodiversity hotspot using geotagged photographs and assess the inequality of access using the home locations of the visitors and socio-economic data. We find that 20% of the population of the region make 87% of the visits to protected areas. The larger, more biodiverse protected areas were the most visited and provided most cultural ecosystem services. Wealthier people tend to travel further to visit protected areas while people with lower incomes tend to visit protected areas that are closer to home. By providing information on the current spatial flows of people to protected areas, we demonstrate the need to expand the protected area network, especially in lower income areas, to reduce inequality in access to the benefits from cultural ecosystem services provided by nature to people.
Read moreModeling Child–Nature Interaction in a Nature Preschool: A Proof of Concept
This article provides a proof of concept for an approach to modeling child–nature interaction based on the idea of interaction patterns: characterizations of essential features of interaction between humans and nature, specified abstractly enough such that countless different instantiations of each one can occur – in more domestic or wild forms – given different types of nature, people, and purposes. The model draws from constructivist psychology, ecological psychology, and evolutionary psychology, and is grounded in observational data collected through a time-sampling methodology at a nature preschool. Through using a nature language that emphasizes ontogenetic and phylogenetic significance, seven keystone interaction patterns are described for this nature preschool: using one’s body vigorously in nature, striking wood on wood, constructing shelter, being in solitude in nature, lying on earth, cohabiting with a wild animal, and being outside in weather. These 7 interactions patterns are then brought together with 13 other patterns published elsewhere to provide a total of 20 keystone interaction patterns that begin to fill out the model, and to show its promise. Discussion focuses on what the model aims to be in terms of both product and process, on what work the model can currently do, and how to further develop the model.
Read moreRecreational Use in Dispersed Public Lands Measured Using Social Media Data and On-Site Counts
Figure 1. MBSNF (boundary in gray) in western WA. Left: The 15 trail areas observed in this study are dispersed across 4 ranger districts (MTB: Mt. Baker, DAR: Darrington, SKY: Skykomish, SNO: Snoqualmie). Right: Geotagged Flickr photos (purple points) taken in and around the MBSNF. Sources: USFS and Flickr. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.) Outdoor recreation is one of many important benefits provided by public lands. Data on recreational use are critical for informing management of recreation resources, however, managers often lack actionable information on visitor use for large protected areas that lack controlled access points. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential for social media data (e.g., geotagged images shared on Flickr and trip reports shared on a hiking forum) to provide land managers with useful measures of recreational use to dispersed areas, and to provide lessons learned from comparing several more traditional counting methods. First, we measure daily and monthly visitation rates to individual trails within the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest (MBSNF) in western Washington. At 15 trailheads, we compare counts of hikers from infrared sensors, timelapse cameras, and manual on-site counts, to counts based on the number of shared geotagged images and trip reports from those locations. Second, we measure visitation rates to each National Forest System (NFS) unit across the US and compare annual measurements derived from the number of geotagged images to estimates from the US Forest Service National Visitor Use Monitoring Program. At both the NFS unit and the individual-trail scales, we found strong correlations between traditional measures of recreational use and measures based on user-generated content shared on the internet. For national forests in every region of the country, correlations between official Forest Service statistics and geotagged images ranged between 55% and 95%. For individual trails within the MBSNF, monthly visitor counts from on-site measurements were strongly correlated with counts from geotagged images (79%) and trip reports (91%). The convenient, cost-efficient and timely nature of collecting and analyzing user-generated data could allow land managers to monitor use over different seasons of the year and at sites and scales never previously monitored, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of recreational use patterns and values. Related News Univ. of Washington program Nature and Health studies link between environment and well-being (December 30, 2021)
Read moreTechnological Nature and Human Well-Being
In terms of physical and psychological well-being, does it matter that on a worldwide level we are replacing interactions with actual nature with technological nature—technologies that mediate, simulate, and augment the natural word? Research from three forms of technological nature are reviewed: a technological nature window, robot pets, and a telegarden. Results suggest that while interacting with technological nature is better than nothing, it is not as good as interacting with real nature. A concern with accepting technological nature is that it can shift the baseline downward for what counts as optimal well-being, as people across generations lose experiences with healthy baselines, a process referred to as environmental generational amnesia. One result is that we ask too little of the idea of urban sustainability, confusing biological living with human flourishing.
Read moreTrends and Knowledge Gaps in the Study of Nature-Based Participation by Latinos in the United States
Figure 1. Cumulative studies (n = 108) by publication year that relate to participation in nature-based activities by Latino communities. Studies include those that focused solely on Latino populations as well as cross-ethnic comparisons that included Latinos. Mounting evidence supports health and well-being benefits associated with nature experiences, while also highlighting race- and class-based inequalities in access and exposure. We synthesized the literature on nature contact by Latinos in the United States to assess the state of knowledge and strategically identify research needs to improve outcomes and reduce health disparities for this rapidly growing ethnic group. Our systematic review revealed 108 articles with a notable increase in number of papers over the past 3 decades. We noted that the body of research is focused on certain demographic targets (adults in urban areas) with a relative dearth of knowledge for others (children, seniors, and rural areas). Our analysis also revealed strong compartmentalizing of studies into research “clusters” based on nonoverlapping topics and types of outcomes that are measured. Although one-third of studies explored health outcomes, these studies rarely examined other outcomes or research topics. Moreover, less than 7% of studies reported on interventions. Given the potential for nature contact to enhance health and well-being, there is substantial need for multidisciplinary research that explores interactions between social, cultural, and economic factors, and how those ultimately relate to nature contact and outcomes for Latinos in the United States.
Read moreUsing Social Media to Understand Drivers of Urban Park Visitation in the Twin Cities, MN
Figure 1. Distribution of urban park and green space polygons in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, MN, USA. Green space and parks in urban environments provide a range of ecosystem services and public benefits. However, planners and park managers can lack tools and resources to gather local information on how parks are used and what makes them desirable places for recreation and a wide variety of uses. Traditional survey methods to monitor park use and user preferences can be costly, time consuming, and challenging to apply at scale. Here, we overcome this limitation by using geotagged social media data to assess patterns of visitation to urban and peri-urban green space across park systems in the metropolitan area of the Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA. We find that parks with nearby water features, more amenities, greater accessibility from the presence of trails, and that are located within neighborhoods with higher population density, are associated with higher rates of visitation. As cities grow and shifts in demographics occur, more responsive management of public green space will become increasingly important to ensure urban parks provide ecosystem services and meet users’ needs. Using social media data to rapidly assess park use at a lower cost than traditional surveys has the potential to inform public green space management with targeted information on user behavior and values of urban residents.
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