The Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, a partner center of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), has carried out a study on the association with exposure to green areas at school and the cognitive development of children. The results are clear : trees and contact with nature in general improve the cognitive performance of primary school children. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
So far, the scientific evidence on what was the impact on the brain of contact with green spaces was limited. This new research work tested the association between the cognitive maturation of nearly 2,600 primary school children and exposure to green areas both at school and at home for 12 months . The scientists tested the little ones every three months, that is, four times during the study period.
The results showed that close contact with nature in and around schools, according to satellite data, was related to a better mental capacity to continuously manipulate and update known information faculties; that is, an improvement of 5% was found in working memory and 6% in higher working memory and, in addition, the children showed a reduction of 1% in inattention , regardless of the education of the children. parents, their race or the work that their parents will perform.
“We also found that traffic-related air pollution accounted for between 20 and 65% of the estimated associations between school greenery and cognitive development . Part of the observed influence of green spaces on cognitive development could be mediated by the ability of green spaces to reduce air pollution, which, in turn, has been negatively related to cognitive development ”, explains Payam Dadvand , study leader.
According to the researchers, the expansion of green spaces in schools “could lead to improvements in the cognitive development of schoolchildren, which ultimately can lead to an advantage in the mental capital of the population “, clarifies Jordi Sunyer, study co-author.
