Les Cours Oasis aims to bring nature to urban children.
Children are the future, so the city of Paris is putting them at the center of climate adaptation. In recent years, the city has instituted initiatives to make school zones a paragon for climate resilient restorations.
Part of the Paris resilience strategy adopted in 2017, Les Cours Oasis (“Oasis Courtyards”) is a project that funds schoolyard renovations. The city made schoolyards a priority because they cover over about 180 urban acres. The asphalt that typically underlies playgrounds contributes to the urban heat island effect — heat retention caused by pavement and other materials that have replaced natural landscapes.
The program involves planting more trees and vegetation in schoolyards, replacing impermeable ground with more permeable materials and soil, and opening these areas to the public both as green spaces to enjoy on a regular basis and as refuges during heat waves. As of spring 2023, 100 of a proposed 770 school and college courtyards in Paris had been renovated as part of this project. For students, Les Cours Oasis also funds gardening workshops.
Another program, launched in 2020, is closing off streets near schools to traffic in an attempt to promote safety and reduce pollution. “Rues aux ecoles,” or “Streets to schools,” has already been implemented on 180 streets around Paris, affecting 230 schools. The project also involves planting more trees and vegetation on these streets. Paris’ mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has also made reducing traffic more broadly a central goal.
Constance Allard, a mother of two children aged eleven and fourteen who attend school in Paris’ 5th Arrondissement, says, “I’m always thinking of kids in an apartment with no terrace, and it's important for them to go out in nature.”
But the rollout of these initiatives hasn’t been as ideal as the plans may seem, Allard notes. At her sons’ school, for example, it was the parents who stepped in and paid for a vegetable garden for the kids, because the City funding didn’t cover it. Allard also notes that in some places the program funding is sufficient to cover initial renovations but not continued maintenance.
“The idea is good, but how will they do it properly?” she asks.
A number of other cities around the world have instituted similar programs at schools. Antwerp, Belgium, has had a program in place since 2010 that adds more greenery to playgrounds. In Jundiai, Brazil, the Desemparedamento da Infância (“Unwalled Childhoods”) project encourages educators to teach more lessons outside of the classroom in natural spaces.
In Paris, a city with only nine-and-a-half percent of its land dedicated to green spaces (the lowest in Europe), these school oases promise to restore residents’ connection to nature from an early age.
