Green Spaces don't just help the environment; they also provide huge benefits for the surrounding community. Being outside helps reduce stress, improve emotional and mental states, and keep you physically fit. Even short periods of time outside, as little as ten minutes can have an effect on your mood and your stress level.
That is why green spaces in cities are so important! In areas where noise is constant and daily life can take you away from appreciating your surroundings, taking some time in a designated green space can have a huge benefit. Taking just ten minutes to go outside has seen positive effects on mood and stress level in adults. Being outside also improves cognition and memory, especially in children. Keeping kids in contact within nature while they develop ensures a better chance that will want to keep parks, green spaces, and the natural world clean and protected when they are older. This means that more children will get to keep experiencing the same parks and green spaces in the future. Other benefits have also been shown in relation to the overall health of a neighborhood or community, lowering crime rates and bringing the community together. Within the city of Syracuse there are 896 acres of green spaces accessible to the public. The majority of these are located on the outskirts of the city, increasing in size the farther from the city’s center. In the areas of lowest average household income there are less than 10 acres of green space in total. Cities that have designed programs to give more access to parks and outdoor spaces, have found decreased crime rates and improved neighborhood conditions (C., 2014). Syracuse does have a few environmental programs in place for its primary school students such as the NOBEL program (Neighborhood Opportunity Based Environmental Learning), though is still very small scale (Almuti, 2004), and a few other tentative plans for an Environmental Education Center. |
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