This article is part of a feature series exploring how the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures to prevent its spread are impacting the human rights of under-18s. 

Schools in Brazil have been shut because of the Covid-19 pandemic for longer than in most countries. To offset the effect of stay-at-home orders and school closures on children, our guest writer Laís Fleury, Coordinator of the Children and Nature Programme at the Alana Institute in Brazil, explains the possibilities and importance of using green and open spaces in children’s education and illustrates how one city in Brazil is already planning for it once it is safe to return to school.

Even before the school closures and stay-at-home orders caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, children were already feeling a kind of physical and social confinement. With most of Brazil’s population living in urban areas, the lifestyle of many children is restricted to being indoors. On the one hand, there is the feeling of insecurity in public spaces, the small quantity of and the little access to green areas in cities, while on the other hand, the majority of children's routine and activities are confined to indoor spaces, not to mention the effect of the increase in the use of technology keeping them there. This reality was already a picture in which children had few opportunities to enjoy open-air spaces, which inevitably has an impact on their health and development. 

The status quo

According to multiple studies, a lack of time spent enjoying open-air and natural spaces causes obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, reduced mobility and even short-sightedness. In parallel, other research shows that living in contact with nature contributes to the integral and healthy development for children. It favours brain and physical development, contributes to mental well-being, and fosters creativity, initiative and self-confidence - not to mention the benefits associated with socio-emotional development, such as empathy and learning to care for oneself, others and the environment.

With the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, schools had their activities

paralysed as a measure of social distancing to flatten the contagion curve of the disease, not to overload the health system and preserve the health of students, educators and staff. According to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Brazil is among the countries that have closed schools the longest. 

Moving the classroom outdoors

Considering the benefits of contact with nature for children’s health, why not think about combining classes with outdoor learning? The pandemic-related benefits are obvious: it avoids crowding in internal spaces like classrooms and corridors and being outdoors means there is enough space to maintain physical distancing. The benefits for children’s health should be clear too: an increase of vitamin D from exposure to the sun, which strengthens immunity, but also a way of welcoming confined bodies that lack movement to open areas, promoting welfare, both for students and educators.

So when planning children’s return to school, why not include the use of outdoor spaces? Since the parks are closed to the public, could they not be used by children during the return to school?

For this to be possible, planning between different sectors is needed to coordinate the use of  open, green and natural spaces both inside and outside of schools to make sure there is the capacity to accommodate students. 

Aware of these issues, the Alana Institute’s Children and Nature programme has outlined what this might look like. It did so in partnership with various organisations, including ones working in education, public health and architecture. The aim was to encourage intersectoral planning for the reopening of schools and the design of sanitary, pedagogical and administrative protocols for once it is safe to return to school - whether it is on school grounds or beyond them. 

One city takes the lead

In response to the Children and Nature programme’s project, the Education Secretary of the city of Jundiaí, north of Sao Paulo, was the first in Brazil to adopt its recommendations as guidelines for the reopening of the city’s 108 schools. They will go through a process of so-called "unwalling", that is, part of the in-person classes will be held in temporary classrooms located in green areas, within the schools themselves or in public spaces nearby, such as squares and parks - and always complying with all current public health protocols. 

To make the initiative viable, the Children and Nature programme has given training to the office of the Jundiaí Education Secretary, involving inter-sectoral planning, with the participation of other departments, such as Urbanism and Environment, and Health, Sports and Culture. Some of the issues considered include health and safety in the assembly and use of the temporary classrooms, as well as the planning of maintenance, cleaning and sanitisation of the spaces.

The schools will preferably use the closest locations to be within walking distance of the school grounds. This use of the surrounding areas has gained a poetic name, Voa Pé, literally ‘Foot that Flies’, a play on words that refers to the simplicity of getting children to walk along the streets of their neighbourhood. We know that walking outdoors avoids greater risks of contagion and eliminates the cost and coronavirus-related risks of using public transportation and helps to make the student get to know  the city better, literally step by step, and realise how they are part of the community. 

Jundiaí took the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink the existing format of education for children, both in terms of how and where it is provided. Its plans to use green and open environments show that not only can it reshape the school curricula and internal processes, but also rethink working structures in school environments. These outdoor classrooms, in addition to collaborating with sanitary measures to promote health and prevent the transmission of coronavirus, are important environments for children's learning. And we think this is an initiative that can be adopted by all municipal authorities in Brazil. 

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