It’s 10:58 in the morning. You should have eaten breakfast by now, but the rush of balancing a full night of sleep while keeping up with schoolwork doesn’t allow a meal to fit into that schedule. Normally, you’d utilize the time during brain break to grab brunch items at the cafeteria; however, this seemingly food-sanctioned time no longer applies, as to maintain your grades in the grueling classes you take. Now you have to wait until lunch. You never have time to eat, much less actually take a break, and it makes your mornings unbearable. On top of this, you won’t be outside for the next seven hours, rotting inside of the school with the piercing LED ceiling lights.

For many students at Rock Ridge, this is the unfortunate reality. Students have no time to enjoy the outdoors, or even spend time outside for longer than 20 minutes, especially during the winter months. 

In fact, we as a generation spend the least amount of time outside out of any other, averaging a whopping 4-7 minutes per day according to the National Parks and Recreation Association.

Granted, this 4-7 minute average takes into account the students who either ride the bus or drive home, which may skew the average low, but it further adds to the fact that students get less (or no) time outside considering they spend very little time walking from their car or bus to their houses. 

Even some of the longest walks home from Rock Ridge are only 23 minutes without any shortcuts, which is much better than no time outside, but by the time school gets out (during the winter), the sun is already gone and the walk is a cold endeavor.

All of this ignores the fact that the real issue lies within Rock Ridge’s walls: students can’t leave them. 

On average, a Rock Ridge student who doesn’t play sports or do any extracurriculars spends just under eight hours locked inside a building with no ability to go outside for a sufficient amount of time. 

One may argue that during lunch, students are free to sit outside on the patio in which they would “receive their outside time,” but anyone who’s ever tried to sit out there knows that it’s on a first-come-first-serve basis and seats are often limited.

On top of that, lunch only lasts 25 minutes. Sure, that’s 25 minutes more than usual, but it’s still not nearly as long as what a high schooler needs. According to Outwardbound’s article on nature and its effect on adolescents, children require a bare minimum of 30-60 minutes outside to receive the positive benefits of being outside but typically require three hours for optimal growth and development. 

Three hours may seem unattainable at first, but taking a deeper look, it’s closer than you may think. In fact, here are a few solutions that the school and students can take to ensure that students are getting enough time outside:

What the School Can Do 

Let students use the courtyards or at least one of them. There are two massive, empty outdoor spaces that could be used from anything to interactive science labs, to lunches, to places where students can hang out during brain break. They could even be decorated for when holidays roll around so that kids aren’t constantly looking out into a bland, bare courtyard everytime they look outside. 

Adding benches, tables, and umbrellas to those areas has been a goal the Rock Ridge PTSO committee has had for years, and has never delivered on. 

In fact, the only thing they’ve changed in the past few years was planting a tree in one of the courtyards as a gag gift to memorialize the reams of paper teachers use for assignments. 

Creatively, those courtyards are used for our Special Education students at times, but even turning one of those spaces into a place that everyone can use would be a great help in giving students the time they need outside while also giving our Special Education students an area to enjoy as well.

These courtyards aren’t a security issue either, considering they’re surrounded by windows and visible from virtually all views around it. If so desired, teachers or faculty could request to use it at certain times (much like the library or auditorium) so there are no colliding/overlapping time issues. 

There’s absolutely no reason for these courtyards to be left as barren and unusable to students as they are, and it’s a shame they’ve been left empty for so long. 

What Students Can Do

A student’s role in how long they spend outside is equally as important as the school’s, and there are many ways they can use that role properly, but here are three that any student can implement in their daily life especially as the weather gets warmer. 

First, get off the phone, even for just a little. The aforementioned article from the NRPA article, states that the average American child spends an alarming 5-8 hours a day on electronics, which according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, can cause physical damage to the cortex of the brain while throwing off melatonin levels (which are crucial for sleep) among other harmful things. This time doomscrolling could rather be spent outside doing literally anything but staring at a phone for long periods of time (like going outside). 

Second, take your friends outside with you. Being outside for so long may feel like a waste of time, but students can make the most of it by having fun with their friends; it could be anything from a walk together to a trip in the local park. The time will fly by as they have fun spending time outside with friends and making great memories along the way. 

Finally, join a sport or any physical activity (as a hobby). There are plenty of sports here at Rock Ridge that students can join or try out for. Many of the sports in the spring and fall are outdoor sports and allow them to get that much-needed time in the sun. If students don’t like any of the options or want to add a new sport, they can always talk to the Student Engagement and Activities Coordinator Bradley Buruamato (in room 1804)  in order to create a club for their desired sport. Students can even join a local recreational league as well. 

It cannot be stressed enough how important going outside is, and how detrimental it can be if students don’t. According to the Child Mind Institute, there are real physical and cognitive benefits to going outside including building strength, confidence, creativity, and reducing stress/fatigue. Going outside just under two hours a day has been proven to even lower the risk of Myopia, more commonly known as nearsightedness according to MyKidsVision.

Missing out on these benefits that are crucial to growth in both the mental and physical sectors of the body can be avoided by taking the necessary and proper steps by both students and the schools not only here at Rock Ridge, but around LCPS as well.