Do girls and boys use their schoolyard differently? How does the design of the space influence what they do or don’t do? Has the way they perceive their schoolyard changed since it was temporarily redesigned and greened?
These are some of the questions the Munich JUSTNature team aims to explore in the schoolyard of the St. Anna primary and secondary schools, which was redesigned together with the pupils in 2024. In early 2025, the Munich team from the city’s planning department presented their ideas in the municipality’s “Advisory Group on Gender-Equitable Space” to lay the grounds to explore the experience of different genders in upcoming play activities in the schoolyard and evaluate the changed space from that perspective. The Advisory Group takes a critical collaborative look at planned projects in the city: colleagues from different departments (e.g. Education and Sports Department, Planning and Building Regulation Department), as well as external experts (e.g. from the District Youth Council and Spiellandschaft Stadt, an NGO which supports JUSTNature locally) join the colleagues from the Construaction Department in the discussion.
In the meeting, the Munich team outlined a possible approach towards understanding how girls and boys use and perceive their schoolyard differently. A central question was how JUSTNature’s findings and results could best support other municipal departments in their long-term measures and planning projects towards gender-equitable spaces.
The advisory group provided helpful feedback, including a set of key questions for further consideration. Amongst those were:
- Should girls and boys be involved or just girls?
- How does age influence perceptions of and needs towards the space?
- Where is “their” place in the schoolyard? How would girls and boys “beautify” the schoolyard (differently)?
- How do the different genders imagine a nature-oriented schoolyard should look and feel like?
- How can socially expected answers be avoided?
- What role can boys’ and girls’ representative teachers play?
The more natural redesign of schoolyards is experiencing a resurgence across Germany – and Munich is planning to renature many of its schoolyards over the coming years. Yet, the gender perspective within a nature-oriented schoolyard has played little role so far. This is what the Munich team is hoping to shed some light on.
The Munich team will report back on findings from this gender analysis with the pupils – stay posted for more during the summer 2025!
// Photo by Linda Schrapp