School Surrounding Greenness (NDVI) and Academic Achievement and Well-Being: A Nationwide School-Level Dataset

This dataset contains nationwide, school-level data linking satellite-derived surrounding greenness with academic achievement, student well-being, and key socioeconomic and school resource indicators. The data were compiled for 2,745 primary and lower secondary schools and are based on the integration of administrative education registers, geospatial information, and neighborhood sociodemographic statistics.

Surrounding greenness is measured using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery (summer composite, 20 m resolution). Mean NDVI values are provided for circular buffers of 100, 200, 400, 600, and 800 meters around each school (NDVI_100, NDVI_200, NDVI_400, NDVI_600, NDVI_800), as well as for each school’s official catchment area (NDVI_skolekrets).

Academic outcomes are long-term school-level averages from national standardized tests: English (eng_avg), reading (les_avg), and mathematics (reg_avg).

Student well-being indicators are derived from the national Pupil Survey and include the prevalence of bullying victimization (mps_total_avg), students’ overall thriving at school (trivsel_trives_avg), and peer inclusion during recess (trivsel_friminutt_avg).

Contextual covariates include:

• laerertetthet_all: teacher density (number of pupils per teacher; lower values indicate more teachers per pupil),

• utgifter_per_elev: corrected gross operating expenditure per pupil,

• ant_elever: total number of enrolled students at the school,

• SES: composite neighborhood socioeconomic status index (education and income),

• lon, lat: longitude and latitude of the school building,

• NDVI_skolekrets: mean NDVI within the school catchment area.

All variables are aggregated at the school level and fully anonymized. The dataset is intended to support research on environmental influences on learning and well-being, environmental justice, and how socioeconomic and urban–rural context moderate associations between school surrounding greenness and student outcomes.