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Press Contact

Thatcher Heldring, Marketing Manager, 206.855.7034 

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Quick Facts about IslandWood

About the Kids

• We serve over 4,000 fourth, fifth and sixth graders each year in our school and summer programs.
• We target children and schools who cannot otherwise afford environmental education programs.
• Two-thirds of our students come from schools with a high percentage of families receiving free and reduced-fee lunch.
  

Statistics about our School Overnight Program

• Typically, throughout the school year, more than 100 children arrive each Monday and stay at IslandWood for four days
• Annually, we serve over 70 schools and over 200 teachers through this program
• We have a 10:1 student to teacher ratio (5:1, when you include visiting teachers and chaperones)
• We opened nine years ago, and now have a waiting list of schools
• Our curriculum supports the Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements
  

Exciting and Affirming Support

• National Geographic awarded IslandWood a $150,000 grant to further develop our cultural history curriculum for use in classrooms across the country.
• Sierra Club recognized IslandWood with a $50,000 grant for having the highest quality hands-on environmental education program in our region.
• Paul G. Allen Foundation provided IslandWood with a $175,000 grant to complete a three-year formal assessment of our programs conducted in partnership with the University of Washington.  The study has revealed that the School Overnight Program contributes to improved student self-esteem, increased knowledge of the environment, greater interest in environmental stewardship, greater comfort in nature, and better teamwork in the classroom.
• National Science Foundation has recently provided IslandWood with a $75,000 planning grant to bring our learning approach to after-school programs through a multi-platform curriculum including video, as well as hands-on and online activities.
  

What Many People Don’t Know About IslandWood

• The School Overnight Program is more than a four-day experience
• We visit classes before their IslandWood experience to strengthen relationships with schools and help students prepare for their visit with related lessons.
• After their IslandWood experience, we follow up with additional classroom visits to support the learning that happened at IslandWood. For many classes this work includes assistance with community stewardship projects that apply ideas learned at IslandWood in their own schools and neighborhoods.
• We offer a ten-month residential graduate program focused on experiential teaching
• The program is accredited with the University of Washington
• Graduate students rotate between academic courses and teaching kids in the field
• Educational Conferences and Team Building Programs occur when kids are not on campus

What Visiting Teachers Tell Us Each Week!

• 98% of chaperones and teachers who attend IslandWood’s School Overnight Program say their students' enthusiasm for learning has increased!
• To many teachers’ surprise, struggling students often become more engaged in learning, and find new ways to be successful after attending the School Overnight Program.  This changes the way their peers treat them when they return to their school. 
• Teachers are able to attend professional development sessions during the School Overnight Program to gain ideas and tools to help them be more effective educators when they return to their classrooms.
• Visiting teachers see how IslandWood instructors bring science and cultural lessons alive for their students.  IslandWood helps kids to understand curriculum they have struggled with back in the classroom.  And when exam time comes, students regularly say “I got that question right because I learned about that at IslandWood!”
  

Amazing 255-Acre Outdoor Biological Laboratory: A School in the Woods

• Our property is incredibly diverse and beautiful – with five different ecosystems: a bog, cattail marsh, stream, pond, and second growth forest
• We are located across the street from an estuary and harbor which provide rich opportunities for additional science and cultural studies.
  

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Stories about IslandWood

More than 30 students from Qatar visited IslandWood on Bainbridge Island this week to learn about teamwork and environmental stewardship......(April 20, 2011)

Teens can be very passionate about causes they believe in. Now there’s a unique partnership to channel that energy in a very visual way.  The pilot program involves Seattle Parks & Recreation and local environmental center Islandwood. The other partner, a very energetic group of kids ready to share their messages with the world.......(April 14, 2011)

With nearly half of their guests traveling to Seattle for the first time, it was very important to Annie Akin and Alex Simmons that their wedding be a quintessential Pacific Northwest event.  The Capitol Hill couple loved IslandWood's beautiful 255-acre property and rustic lodges.......(Spring/Summer 2011)

IslandWood teaches campers to appreciate natural resources... "To change habits you need to change attitudes," says Christen Foehring, Program Coordinator....(November/December, 2010)

IslandWood’s acclaimed outdoor science programs for disadvantaged inner-city children are quickly expanding off Bainbridge Island. The environmental-learning center has forged new partnerships with groups across the water that have similar programs, vastly expanding IslandWood’s reach.......(August 10, 2010)

...Today, Debbi is the founder of IslandWood, an acclaimed environmental learning center that hosts fourth, fifth, and sixth graders from inner-city public schools for four-day, hands-on, outdoor education programs each week during the school year......(July, 2010)

IslandWood, the Bainbridge Island-based conservation and science education charity, is merging with a much smaller, similar nonprofit in a move that will expand IslandWood’s presence in Seattle......(June 25, 2010)

IslandWood has received a $50,000 grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation in support of a 20-month pilot program with Seattle Parks and Recreation that will provide hands-on environmental education programs for Seattle public high school students......(January 27, 2010)

IslandWood is a place of wonder - a fully staffed environmental education center with the goal of providing students and adults with hands-on learning experiences, while inspiring in them a life-long commitment to environmental and community stewardship.....(Winter, 2010)

The Mochi Tsuki festival has evolved into one of the grand traditions of Bainbridge Island, as nearly 1000 poeple turned out [at IslandWood] Sunday to help the island's Japanese-American community usher in the New Year.....(January 4, 2010)

Lookout Network, New Life for Rainier Lookout Tower at IslandWood
“With the dedication ceremony in May 2009, the Canopy Tower has brought a new life and purpose to the former Rainier Lookout Tower that had originally stood on Fort Lewis, WA..." (Winter/Spring, 2009)

Renowned documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan met with a class of high school and middle school students working on their own digital video project about nature at IslandWood....(April 23, 2009)

Chronicle of Philanthropy, A Growing Leadership Gap
Despite the wave of layoffs washing over the nonprofit world, a study to be released this week predicts that at least 24,000 senior-level nonprofit jobs will be open this year. IslandWood Executive Director, Ben Klasky comments...(April 20, 2009)

Kitsap Sun, Ken Burns Tells Kitsap Kids: Get Off The Computer And Head For The Hills
Ken Burns, the historical filmmaker who was on Bainbridge Island on Sunday, had this message for young people: Stop texting and Twittering — just for a moment — and go enjoy a national park...(April 20, 2008)

Sound News, IslandWood: A Strong Link Connecting People to Puget Sound
“Tug on anything and you will find it connected to everything else.”  The message of interrelatedness, adopted from the writings of the naturalist John Muir, welcomes you upon entering the expansive lodge at the outdoor learning center IslandWood...(February 25, 2009)

Judy Kiu Kin-yan's real reason for being here is to take what she learns at IslandWood back home [to Hong Kong], where she's an educator at a similar environmental-education center... One thing Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden doesn't have is an overnight kids' program. IslandWood does, and it's caught her imagination...(November 12, 2008)

Kitsap Sun, New Director Joins IslandWood
Environmental educator John Haskin has joined IslandWood, the outdoor learning center on Bainbridge Island, as director of education....(November 11, 2008)

KOMO-TV, IslandWood: A first-hand course on nature
Islandwood on Bainbridge Island is an outdoor oasis where city kids learn environmental lessons that may just last a lifetime. For one week, they leave behind life in the urban world to explore the natural world…..(September 26, 2008)

KING-TV, Islandwood Draws Students to Bainbridge
There is a very unique school on Bainbridge and in just five years it has become very successful.  KING 5's Tim Robinson is live in Seattle talking about IslandWood and a lot of kids in Seattle trying to get over there…..(July 9, 2008)

Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal, IslandWood Experiencing Another Growth Spurt Youngsters are naturally drawn to adventures, but what kind of adventure could possibly compel a child to say it’s “better than ice cream, video games and amusement parks all in one day?”…..(July, 2008)

Seattle PI, Get kids off couch and into the woods 
When was the last time you encouraged your child to run outside and play?  Some parents feel it's just not an option any more... (June 24, 2008)

Puget Sound Business Journal, Interview with IslandWood founder Debbi Brainerd
They need to first see, feel, smell, touch ... understand what a forest is…..(April 15, 2008)

Seattle Times, Bainbridge Island outdoor learning center seeks to raise $8 million
When IslandWood School began eight years ago, its founders hoped to create generations of environmental stewards… (March 17, 2008)

KCPQ-TV, IslandWood Tour
It’s just a ferry ride away from Seattle, but it’s worlds away from everyday life for hundreds of students every week. Q-13 Fox News Anchor, Lily Jang takes us on a tour…..(February 24, 2008)

WestSound Home & Garden Magazine, Chefs of IslandWood—Environmental Education With Thoroughly Civilized Cuisine (PDF, 1.6MB)
Hand them lemons and the chefs of IslandWood will make more than just lemonade; they’ll turn them into an epicurean banquet with a presentation to rival the most fashionable five-star resort......(Spring 2008, WSH&G)

Washington State Magazine, A School In The Woods 
Bainbridge Island is only a half-hour's ferry ride  from downtown Seattle - yet for children growing up in urban King County, its forests of fir, hemlock, and alder are a world away......(Spring 2008)

Bainbridge Island Review, An outpost for education
Straight out of a child’s dream, these spaces embody IslandWood’s gestalt, a mission to deliver hands-on outdoor education both to children and adults, placing primary emphasis on learning in natural settings with the hope of inspiring lifelong environmental stewardship....(2008.2.2)

Metropolis Magazine, Into The Woods (PDF, 4.08MB)
I’m walking with ten fourth-graders around Island Wood, a six-acre environmental learning-center campus built carefully, almost apologetically, into a 255-acre nature preserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington....(2008.1)

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Press Releases

2012.08.16 OUTSIDE Magazine names IslandWood as one of America's Best Places to Work in 2011

2011.02.09 IslandWood Awarded Community Grant from Union Bank

2010.05.01 IslandWood Named Recipient of Nature's Path 2009 ENVIROKIDZ Giving Back Award for 2010/11

2010.04.26 Seattle's Homewaters Project Joins Forces With IslandWood

2009.07.17 IslandWood Named Recipient of Nature's Path 2009 ENVIROKIDZ Giving Back Award - $10,000 Will Support IslandWood School Overnight Program.

2008.05.12 IslandWood Media's A School In The Woods wins Emmy for KRCB-TV Series, "Natural Heroes"
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized the IslandWood Media feature in the Education/Schools category at the Northern California regional award ceremony.

2008.04.28 Three Environmental Education Organizations Team Up To Get Washington's Children Outside
$200,000 state grant awarded jointly to IslandWood on Bainbridge Island, North Cascades Institute in Sedro-Woolley, and Olympic Park Institute, in Port Angeles

2008.02.11 IslandWood Announces Campaign to Expand Campus, Plans to Serve 1,000 More Puget Sound School Children
Local Companies and Foundations Lend Support to $8 Million Effort

2007.06.29 National Geographic Education Foundation Funds New Media Initiative at IslandWood
Two-year, $150,000 Grant to Create, Pilot and Evaluate A Model Curriculum for Geographic Literacy

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