1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Living Schoolyards Act of 2023 . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) City planning and urban development often disconnect communities from natural systems, such as forests, waterways, and wildlife habitats. Existing green spaces in our cities are not evenly distributed and the presence of neighborhood parks and nature-rich school grounds are strongly correlated with income in most cities across the United States. This means that communities with the fewest resources usually also have the least access to nature in their neighborhoods and on their school grounds. (2) Communities across the Nation are facing more extreme weather, including flooding, excessive heat, and forest fires. (3) Environmental sustainability has become a high priority in planning and design and should be incorporated in construction and renovation of schools across urban, suburban, and rural districts. (4) School districts are 1 of the largest land managers in almost every city and town in the United States. The choices schools and districts make about how they manage their land directly impacts students’ daily experiences, mental and physical health, and learning outcomes. Schools can benefit their students, educators, and surrounding communities through thoughtful design and use of their grounds, paying mind to local ecological, social, and cultural context. (5) On-campus green space that can be described as living schoolyards can have environmental and ecological resilience benefits, such as stormwater management, rainwater collection, carbon sequestration, air quality improvement, wildlife habitat restoration, mitigation of extreme heat, and ecological resiliency. (6) The amount of time the average American child spends outdoors is in constant decline. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children ages 8 through 18 now spend on average 7.5 hours per day in front of a screen. More than 28,000,000 children do not live within a 10-minute walk of a park. (7) Living schoolyards