School Partnerships

School Partnerships

by Kristi Stoa

Many residential experiences for children become isolated memories of their elementary school years with no sense of connections with personal lives or with what they are studying in school. By building a partnership relationship with our schools, we are helping them to make the connection between what they learn at IslandWood and what they learn in the classroom and home community. At IslandWood, we want each student to have an experience that is meaningful, relevant, and contributes to development of stewardship.

Children from low-income communities need to be both knowledgeable about the issues in their local neighborhoods and confident that they can make a difference by working together and in partnership with local agencies. Our mission of stewardship is implemented through very practical objectives for students' learning both on our residential site and with follow-up in the their classrooms. Children who are empowered as stewards for their local communities will become responsible and contributing adults, and will have more opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.

Because of the historic lack of funding for many urban schools to participate in residential outdoor learning experiences, we have specifically reached out through our scholarship allocations and our school partnerships program to work with teachers and families in these communities. In order to have a significant impact on students' learning and the transfer of that learning to their home communities, we have regular contact with the schools we serve. Our school partnerships program helps teachers prepare the students for a successful residential learning experience, dovetail their classroom curriculum with their learning during the four-day overnight program, and initiate a community learning project to positively impact their own neighborhood. We know that to build meaningful relationships with the schools--students, teachers, staff, and families--we need to spend time in the classroom, as well as time meeting with parents and the school community. In addition, we provide support to teachers through professional development workshops and curriculum planning.

Also, we provide support for schools to implement successful community learning projects and link the schools with community resources. Many teachers have not received adequate training in science and related subject areas, and lack the confidence to take on outside projects. This year students participated in stream monitoring, neighborhood clean-up, local wetland restoration, school gardens, recycling projects, and amphibian surveys in their own communities. Future projects will focus on community stewardship through the arts, literacy, and environmental health, as well as social justice issues.

The curriculum, on site at IslandWood and in the school partnerships, focuses on the following outcomes:
· The value of being a steward of one's self, community, and the environment;
· Knowledge of basic ecological concepts including ecosystems, habitats, adaptations, and biodiversity;
· The interconnectedness of natural and cultural communities; the impact that humans have on their environment; and
· The benefits of working together cooperatively.

We work directly with the schools to reach out to low-income communities by engaging in and supporting activities that partner the schools with both local agencies within the neighborhood and individuals working with specific efforts in the communities. Specific organizations we have collaborated with in this effort include:

· Seattle Parks and Recreation
· EarthCorps
· Seattle School District
· University of Washington
· King County
· Powerful Schools
· Local PTSAs
· Starflower Foundation
· Washington State University Cooperative Extension, King County

Future collaborations include:
· Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
· Woodland Park Zoo
· Community Coalition for Environmental Justice

This year, Joe Petrick, a 02-03 graduate student at IslandWood has developed a framework for student-directed stewardship projects (see related article). As we continue to strive towards practicing our mission, IslandWood is developing a stewardship curriculum for our school overnight program's school outreach. Our goal is to capture each student's interest and encourage a deep, meaningful relationship with their communities.

About the author

Kristi Stoa, M.A. is School Partnerships Coordinator at Islandwood. During her 23 years in education, Kristi has taught elementary school in Oregon, Virginia, and for the past 16 years, in Washington for the Seattle Public Schools. With a life long commitment to stewardship of the environment, Kristi has been a lead science teacher, a member of Seattle's Inquiry-based Science Program Design Team, and a member of the Seattle VINE (volunteer-Led Investigations of Neighborhood Ecology) Follow-Through Design Team. She has designed curriculum, taught professional development workshops, and supervised student teachers. Education: B.S. in Elementary Education, Western Oregon University; 5th year, University of Washington; M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction from City University, Seattle.

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