NatureBridge 

NatureBridge offers environmental education programs. Their residential education center is located at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park and they also offer programs in the schools in King County and the North Olympic Penisula. They provide an inquiry based learning experience for students and provide training and resources for teachers.

Proven Success
NatureBridge is committed to providing consistent and quality science education. By providing students with the tools and choices to conduct their own investigations, they will inspire students to be motivated to become stewards for their communities throughout the greater Puget Sound area.

Accessibility and Cultural Competency
NatureBridge ensures access to the outdoors for all students by reducing their program enrollment fees based on their percentages of students eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. In the 2011-12 school year, the Olympic campus served 4,806 students and teachers from 111 schools, of which 33% were located in King County. They exceeded their goal of providing at least 45% (53% total) of the participating schools with scholarship assistance, totaling $222,732. Over half of the King County schools received scholarships. In the 2012-13 school year, they expect to provide $267,411 in scholarship assistance. Additionally, they work closely with the Lower Elwha Klallam and other local Tribes to serve the needs of tribal youth in the North Olympic Peninsula area.

Collaboration
For 41 years, NatureBridge has been an official educational partner of the National Park Service. With their five campuses, they are the National Park Service’s largest partner in residential environmental education. They have collaborated on a variety of educational projects most recently, incorporating the historic removal of the Elwha River dams into field science education programming.

NatureBridge is partnering with National Geographic’s FieldScope. FieldScope allows data to be collected and analyzed. NatureBridge will launch their FieldScope site to the public this fall and train students and teachers to upload data.

Best Practices
NatureBridge has been awarded a multi-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Literacy Grants Program for implementation beginning in fall 2012. As part of the project, they will provide new teacher engagement activities and enhance the quality of their teacher professional development program content. These new teacher engagement programs will focus on increasing the diversity of participants, accessibility of the program, meeting state standards, and overall quality of the knowledge and skills gained by teachers.

Sustainability
In 2010, NatureBridge launched a 10-year Strategic Plan for capacity building in the core areas of quality, reach, diversity, and influence. Components of the Strategic Plan include investments in program growth, evaluation, and organizational infrastructure. To implement this capacity building, NatureBridge received an investment for a three-year period from Google Charitable Trust of Tides Foundation.

As NatureBridge has moved forward with the implementation of their Strategic Plan, the Board authorized additional investments, and approved deficit budgets. With the two years of capacity building investment they are beginning to see results. At its May 2012 Board meeting, NatureBridge adopted a break-even budget for fiscal year 2013. Their Olympic campus budget will operate at a deficit of $139,916, inclusive of $138,000 in depreciated fundraised assets recognized in a previous year. They continue to focus on new program development, public and media relations, and marketing to increase visibility, and increasing individual giving.