Native plant garden and learning edible garden

I have been looking at a lot of garden books for inspiration. At first, I was thinking a couple of boxes to get a little interest. But then I looked at "From Asphalt to Ecosystems" and had a totally different vision of what could happen. I looked again at our playgound. It is very similar to what my playyard looked like when I was growing up. A sea of asphalt with little islands of playground equipment.

Living in the NW of Seattle also gave me a different perspective of it. All of that concrete sheds so much water. There are several spots that get flooded pretty easily every time it rains. What we really need is an ecosystem with native plants (maybe even an underground cistern for all that water to be used for watering plants).

Doing the entire school yard would be a major project. But there could be a lot of community support for converting concrete to habitat. The city has neighborhood grants that could support the effort.