Environmental Adventure School

For my Dyad, I am working with 6th to 9th graders at the Environmental Adventure School. This is a choice school in the Lake Washington School District. There are several different choice schools in this district and this one was started eleven years ago. The ideals that EAS is founded on are: integrated units of study, environmental stewardship, community building, and social constructivist, multi-age learning. The units of study are rotated on a six week basis, with service projects performed in between rotations. In the image above, one of the EAS students can be seen planting trees at the ground breaking ceremony for Brightwater's environmental center. Some of the other community service projects included teaching third graders about the environment, building bird feeders to be placed in the open spaces near the school and feeding the homeless in Seattle.

In addition to the community service projects, the EAS students also go on a community building camping trip at the beginning of the year and an environmental education trip in March. What an interesting way to revolutionize the usual classroom routine. As my master teacher says, they are given a lot of latitude in how they teach and organize their school because they continue to get very good WASL scores. It also probably does not hurt that the LWSD superintendent's daughters go to the school. It always helps to have a connection, but in my mind the school's concept seems to really be effective and the teachers' at EAS have earned their freedom to teach outside the usual boundaries.