Island Wood, a six-acre environmental learning-center campus built carefully, almost apologetically, into a 255-acre nature preserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington

to demonstrate architectural environmentalism and to elicit kids’ questions and interest

to address two apparently unrelated problems: environmental degradation and shortfalls in inner-city education

now covered with second-growth forest, and ­features—among other natural wonders—a pond, a bog, a marsh, an estuary, a deep ravine, and a harbor

brings in children and teachers from inner-city schools and hosts them for the better part of a week, giving them intense, hands-on outdoor science education and indoor exposure to “green” architecture

Washington State’s first LEED Gold project

everything from photovoltaic roof panels to a rainwater-capture apparatus and a greenhouse, called the Living Machine, packed with plants that filter Island Wood’s gray water for reuse

We don’t preach

we just make it obvious so they’ll ask questions