Schoolyards Count!

Check up on the health of your schoolyard

We are reaching out to schools across Ontario to help us understand how our schoolyards ‘measure up’. As members of Ontario school communities – through school councils, health and physical education classes, healthy-schools or eco-schools committees, even as individuals – we are asking you to take an hour to use a standardized ‘audit tool’ to assess the quality of your own schoolyard, and to answer some questions about how it is used and developed.

The data you collect can inform discussions about priorities and goals for your schoolyard.

Please, share your results with us. If you are using the online tool, your answers will save automatically when you enter them. If you are using a pdf printed from the web, you can send the completed tool and survey to the address at the end of the tool.

Your work as citizen scientists will help us create a comprehensive picture of schoolyard quality and use across Ontario.

By sharing it, you will fill in the picture on the overall state of Ontario’s schoolyards – what are their strengths and weaknesses? How are they changing? Are there big differences in schoolyard quality across Ontario? How often are students getting outside?

Schoolyards Count! is a partnership between Ophea and a researcher at Wilfrid Laurier University, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Get started with the Schoolyards Count! Online SPEEDY Audit Tool and Survey.