Sharon Danks

Author Sharon Gamson Danks, MLA-MCP, is an environmental city planner by training. Since 1999, her professional work and passion have focused on transforming school grounds into vibrant public spaces that reflect and enhance local ecology, engage the community, and nurture children as they learn and play.

In 2013, she founded a nonprofit organization called Green Schoolyards America (greenschoolyards.org), which puts the ideas in "Asphalt to Ecosystems" into practice! Green Schoolyards America seeks to transform asphalt-covered school grounds into park-like green spaces that improve children's well-being, learning, and play while contributing to the ecological health and resilience of our cities. The organization is working to change the norm for school ground design, use, and management so that all children will have access to the natural world in the places they already visit on a daily basis.

An accomplished schoolyard designer, researcher and speaker, Sharon has traveled the world to study hundreds of school grounds and share best practices. She is also the co-founder of a global professional network called the International School Grounds Alliance (internationalschoolgrounds.org), and the co-founder of a design firm called Bay Tree Design (baytreedesign.com). As a green schoolyard designer and advocate, she has directed four conferences in the San Francisco Bay Area, facilitated master planning processes for over two dozen schoolyards, and served on California’s statewide Environmental Literacy Task Force. In 2017, she was honored to become an Ashoka Fellow.

Sharon's book, "Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation" (New Village Press, Nov. 2010) received a national, professional Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in August 2012. The ASLA Awards Jury pronounced it, "The most comprehensive and useable book. It's got great ideas that people can actually translate into practice."

In addition to "Asphalt to Ecosystems", Sharon has written a variety of published works including green schoolyard-themed articles that have appeared in Landscape Architect Magazine, Orion, New Village Journal, and Green Teacher. She is also the editor of a set of free online books filled with green schoolyard activity ideas, created in honor of International School Grounds Month. (See: http://bit.ly/GSA-guides)

Sharon holds master’s degrees in landscape architecture and city planning (MLA-MCP) from UC Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University. She is also the mother of two expert playground testers.