 Children from Evergreen Elementary reach into a sunflower for seeds.
For many, it's their first time harvesting food they will later eat.
Opening up
"A LOT OF PEOPLE learn better in a less restrictive
environment," says Gruenewald. "It serves everyone to have deep
experiences in a natural environment where there is room to
explore and discover."
That need for experiences in a natural environment was a focus
for Brainerd and her team, as they worked on the educational
component for the school. They reviewed the 1998 Pew study and
noted how hands-on learning and an understanding of environment,
community, and natural surroundings could improve learning.
Attendance improved and discipline problems diminished, when
children took classes that utilized the outdoors. "The study helped
shape IslandWood's educational philosophy," says Brainerd. "Our
mission is really being a model for the way effective learning
should be happening," she says. "If we could create a model of the
way learning happens and the teachers . . . could see their kids
have this transforming experience . . . we knew we could become
more than an environmental education center."
Brainerd and her team decided to open IslandWood at the lowest
possible cost to participating schools, so that children from
low-income communities could attend. On average, schools pay $25
per student for the four-day experience. The rest is covered
through scholarships and donations. Donors, like REI, also
contribute supplies, including water bottles and rain gear, since
many of the students arrive without them.
After meeting with local focus groups, historians, teachers, and
children, asking what they thought about the project and what it
would need, Brainerd traveled around the country to look at other
examples of outdoor school experiences, taking the best ideas and
learning from their mistakes.
Then, returning to the Northwest, she took on the hard task of
leading hundreds of potential donors on two- to three-hour tours
through the IslandWood site. "Debbi has a rare and amazing
combination of skills," says director Klasky. "People tend to be
all heart or all logic and strategy. She's got both."
For IslandWood, it was a winning combination. According to
the conventional wisdom, most donors like to give to an
established program, something with a history. "We started with an
idea, a dream," says Brainerd. "We had no history."
Many bought into her vision anyway. In fact, the list of donors,
including the current board of directors, reads like a who's-who of
the Puget Sound region, including corporate names like Starbucks,
Amgen, and Boeing. Among the earliest supporters and influences
were well-known philanthropists Jeannie Nordstrom and Nancy
Nordhoff.
Brainerd considers Nordhoff a mentor, since the older woman had
set up her own nonprofit writer's retreat for women on Whidbey
Island a decade earlier. "That process of being open to the spirit
of the land and what you hear and feel, I had had," says Nordhoff.
"It was very easy for me to do the same thing with Debbi at
IslandWood."
It was a wet day when Brainerd took Nordhoff to the site. "There
were very few trails then," says Nordhoff. "We jumped logs and had
to bend underneath branches."
"It's a beautiful piece of property," she says. "You can't help
but know the strength of the land would have an affect on the
humans who visited it." And she trusted Brainerd's ability to
realize the dream. "I'm sure she had no idea what she was in for
with the amount of details and decisions and all the stuff that
goes into building," says Nordhoff. "But she has a good sense of
judgment and could pick a team right away that produced something
beyond what even she imagined."
The architects from the Seattle-based Mithun firm camped on the
property to get a sense of what the children would see. They also
asked children what they wanted. The results include a tree house,
a raft for the pond, and windows for every bunk.
They wanted to create structures that taught environmental
lessons. Many of the building materials are sustainable, salvaged,
or recycled. The buildings are designed to capture natural light,
yet offer shelter from summer sun. One of the buildings has a
composting toilet. The floors in the three sleeping lodges are
covered with rugs made of recycled material, and 50 percent of the
hot water in the showers is heated through a solar water
system.
Today the education program serves more than 3,000 children and
their teachers and trains 20 graduate students year. On weekends
private organizations and families can use the
facilities.
"At the start of all this, I hadn't imagined it would be so
big," says Brainerd.
When the school opened in 2002 "there was some nervousness," she
says. "Would it be exciting enough for the kids? The educational
experience—would the teachers feel they really benefited?"
Debriefing the teachers after the first few sessions, the
IslandWood team learned the outdoor program was doing more for the
children than any other experience away from their home school.
"They told us there was nothing that compared," says Brainerd.
"There was nothing that was of the caliber of what we were
doing."
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