The Allergy Friendly Schoolyard is “the call” of all school-aged children and teachers who are allergy/asthma sufferers. The goal is very simple: to have “healthy” schoolyards for all school-aged children to engage them in allergy-friendly exercise and play.

In the past, schoolyards were frequently planted with shrubs and trees that triggered pollen allergies - allergic asthma. The typical schoolyard is, unfortunately, all too often considerable allergenic than the surrounding landscape.

Today, more than ever, especially given the current epidemic of childhood obesity, children need to be encouraged to exercise and play vigorously. Schoolyards should be fun, safe, healthy places and always be allergy-friendly.

We encourage schools to:

• Check Ogren Plant Allergy Scale (OPALS) rankings for all the plant selections. This is a numerical plant allergy scale where landscape plants are ranked 1 – 10. Plants ranked 1 are best, least allergenic, and 10 is worst, most allergenic. This scale is now used worldwide for allergy reduction.

• Talk to the people in charge of planting shrubs and trees in your schoolyards. Strongly encourage them to include allergy-friendly plants in all future selections for your schoolyards.

We need your help. Working together, we can make great things happen!

The Veterans Gardening Guide is available at:

http://www.veteransgardeningguide.com/

More information can be found at:

http://www.healthyschoolyards.org/

http://www.healthyschoolyards.org/