[12][13] She designed outdoor playgrounds with blooming gardens, shaded ponds and nature trails.
[14][15] Her book Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation describes ways to transform the "traditional school ground’s slab of asphalt into edible gardens"[3][1][16][17] and it received an American Society of Landscape Architects award in 2012.
[4][5] In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Danks, along with Green Schoolyards America and several other organizations, founded the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative to help American K-12 schools move into fresh air spaces to reduce virus transmission.
[13][18][19] She helped create an online resource called the National Outdoor Learning Library to help educators plan their outdoor learning efforts.
[20] The online library features templates for constructing outdoor classroom spaces and lesson plans.