DONATE NOW NEWSLETTER

Garden Classroom

THE GARDEN
CLASSROOM

A Place of Powerful Learning and Growth

IslandWood > School Overnight Program > The Experience > Garden Classroom

GARDEN EDUCATION

Our Garden Classroom is tucked in a sunny corner of the IslandWood campus with thoughtfully-designed garden beds that provide a variety of tastes, colors, smells, and culinary uses. The Classroom also features a greenhouse, honeybee hives, and an interactive educational area about native pollinators. It was made possible thanks to the generosity of Heide Felton, Deb Fenwick, and Anne Lennartz.

THE IMPACT

GARDEN EDUCATION

Our Garden Classroom has brought learning to life for more than 50,000 elementary school and graduate students since its creation.

GARDEN EDUCATION

Our Garden Classroom is a place of powerful learning for both graduate students and elementary school students alike. Many of our graduate program alumni now use gardens as a tool in their work as educators at schools and community organizations.

During our School Overnight Program (SOP), our graduate students and garden educators develop garden-based lesson plans that give elementary students the opportunity to explore science, math, and sustainability concepts and practice problem-solving, teamwork, and observation skills.

SOIL TO SNACK PROGRAM

During this two-hour food experience in our School Overnight Program, students taste and harvest fresh garden produce, participate in a garden lesson that involves tracing the food they eat back to farms and gardens, and then meet our chef-instructors for a hands-on cooking experience.

GARDEN STORIES

MEL ON THE MOVE: EXPLORING GARDENS AND GROWING CONNECTIONS

We recently caught up with IslandWood’s Garden Staff Instructor, Mel Chu...

Looking back on our most recent summer camp season, it felt fitting to reflect on how much we’ve “grown” by speaking with the remarkable Mel Church

September 4, 2024

GROWING FORWARD: MEL CHURCH’S FRESH TAKE ON ISLANDWOOD’S GARDEN

Looking back on our most recent summer camp season, it felt fitting to r...

At IslandWood, Wade was created to serve as the food waste station where School Overnight Program students would sort and weigh all the food waste after each meal in the dining hall.

June 24, 2024

WADE IN THE GARDEN

At IslandWood, Wade was created to serve as the food waste station where...

IslandWood acknowledges that the land on which we gather is within the ancestral territory of the suqʷabš “People of Clear Salt Walter” (Suquamish People). Expert fisherman, canoe builders and basket weavers, the suqʷabš live in harmony with the lands and waterways along Washington’s Central Salish Sea as they have for thousands of years. Here, the suqʷabš live and protect the land and waters of their ancestors for future generations as promised by the Point Elliot Treaty of 1855. While the majority of our work takes place on Suquamish and Duwamish (dxʷdɐwʔabʃ) land, we also conduct programs on the land of the Snohomish (sduhúbʃ), Puyallup (spuyaləpabš), Muckleshoot (buklshuhls), Skokomish (sqoqc’bes), and S’Klallam (nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əm) peoples.

IslandWood is a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Our tax ID number is 31-1654076.

4450 Blakely Ave. NE, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 206.855.4300