Sharon Gamson Danks ’93 Is Building Safer, Greener Playgrounds

When it comes to fighting climate change in everyday life, most people think of solutions like recycling or riding bikes to save on energy. But Sharon Gamson Danks ’93 is finding ways to improve the environment by reforming playgrounds for children. Danks founded the Berkeley, California-based nonprofit Green Schoolyards America in 2013 to make playgrounds safer and greener for children by replacing asphalt while also teaching them environmental policy through age-appropriate play.

“We’re an organization that aims to remake the standard for outdoor infrastructure at schools,” says Danks. “We’re trying to shift the paradigm from pavement and grass into ecologically rich park-scapes.”

Her goal is to create eco-friendly playgrounds where children not only play, but also learn the value of contributing to their outdoor environments. As part of the process, Danks and her team find locations that have “the least nature” and repurpose these areas by planting trees. This led Danks to also form the statewide initiative California Schoolyard Forest System in 2022 to increase tree canopy and shade on school grounds.

“We think kids should go to school in ecologically rich park areas that will help their city’s ecological systems absorb stormwater, cool heat islands with shade trees, and bring wildlife habitat,” she says. The other part of the job involves meeting with local and federal governments on developing environmental policies for schoolyards. “A lot of it is policy work,” says Danks. “If all your policies and systems point toward making pavement and indoor learning, how do we reshape that into green space?”

Danks’ passion for environmental reform began during her time on Princeton’s campus. She majored in religion but found her environmental studies and governmental policy classes fascinating. “It sparked my interest,” she says.

Eager to learn, Danks upped her reading, getting familiar with titles like The Control of Nature by John McPhee ’53, which details nature’s complex yet beautiful systems.

“That book was really interesting and sticks in my head 30 years later,” Danks says. She also had a friend whose father worked within the environmental field and was a mentor of sorts, providing guidance on tangible ways to enter the discipline. “He gave me great advice. He said, ‘Try out three different career paths in the environmental fields, pick one, and go to grad school,’ and that’s what I did.” She earned her master’s in city planning and landscape architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.

After several jobs — including interning with Princeton Project 55, which places interns at nonprofits working toward systemic change — Danks co-founded a group called the International School Grounds Alliance. Its mission is to improve playgrounds. This laid the foundation for the work she does now through Green Schoolyards America and the California Schoolyard Forest System. Given the success of the nonprofits in California, her team is now working to expand and create similar programs in New Mexico and Nevada.

She hopes her work helps change the trajectory of kids’ relationship to their environment. There are numerous benefits to greener playgrounds, including better test scores, as studies show trees benefit children’s mental and physical health. In collaboration with several other nonprofits focused on greening playgrounds, Green Schoolyards America has helped renovate more than 300 playgrounds.

Danks adds, “School is the place where I think we have an obligation to provide [kids] with environments that they need to build their skills, confidence, and operations.”

Nominate Other Inspiring Alumni. This story is part of a series highlighting the stories of alumni doing inspiring work. To nominate others, please email your ideas to paw@princeton.edu.