Abstract

Pupils’ drawings can be useful tools for investigating their perceptions about nature and the built environment. This study explores the perceptions of 88 Greek primary school pupils from 8 to 11 years old about schoolyard habitats. In order to detect the perceptions, the pupils were asked to draw, first using conventional methods—crayons, pencils or temperas—and then with the help of the Photoshop computer design program, their schoolyard (“actual” schoolyard). The same pupils were then asked to draw the schoolyard in the way they wished it to be (“ideal” schoolyard). Pupils’ drawings were then marked with the use of the Schoolyard Habitat Drawing Scoring Rubric (Cronin-Jones, 2005). The analysis of pupils’ drawings brings out the differences among pupils’ perceptions of the natural environment and, more particularly, of the “actual” and the “ideal” schoolyard. Knowing pupils’ perceptions of schoolyards could prove a significant source of information about the design of new schoolyards on the basis of pupils’ ideas, needs and wishes, with a view to improving the quality of education provided to the pupils.