Ten years ago this fall, a handful of eighth-graders boarded a sailing ship for a two-hour cruise around Langley Harbor.

The students’ ride aboard the well-known Whidbey Island schooner Cutty Sark was the seed of an idea thought up by two innovative Langley Middle School teachers. While the little out-and-back on the classic wooden boat seemed an inauspicious beginning, that day was the start of Adventure Education at LMS.

Ten years later, early this October, 26 eighth-grade students with teachers, volunteer chaperones and a ton of gear boarded three sailing ships for a five-day odyssey to Sucia Island. Like the explorers they learned about in textbooks, the students were off on a voyage of discovery and learning rare in a place that is far less wild than when the first Europeans arrived in Puget Sound centuries ago.

Since that first short trip, the Adventure Education program at LMS has grown to include two trips a school year to Sucia, an uninhabited island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There, students learn about marine life and assist professionals in restoring natural habitat. In a decade of trips, nearly 600 students have participated in the semester-long elective.

This fall’s class spent five days on Sucia Island in October. The 26 eighth graders sailed, camped and kayaked, and they learned about the natural world from forest rangers and a marine biologist.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for real world learning,” said Adventure Education student Thomas Speight.

The curriculum is set up to teach students self-reliance, responsibility, teamwork, confidence and compassion, and to raise their environmental awareness.

For many students, this is their first real outdoor experience. It is also the first real challenge many have met in their lives. Eighth grader Kristen Barrow said the experience of kayaking around Sucia Island was “awesome.”

“We will remember what we learned for a very long time,” she said.

The group began its journey of learning on land, at the Island County Ropes Course in Coupeville, where they worked on communication and teamwork. From there, they traveled to Coronet Bay where they boarded three sailing ships headed first to James Island then to Sucia for a four-day stay.

During their stay, the students worked with a park ranger on habitat restoration for an unusual plant, a cactus indigenous to the island. Then they got wet with a marine biologist studying marine life dependent on healthy eel grass beds.

Adventure Education teacher Susie Richards, who has been involved with the program since the early 1990s, said what the students learn on the island cannot be gleaned from textbooks.

“The classroom literally comes alive,” said Richards, who shares teaching duties with eight-grade science teacher Jay Freundlich. “When we are out in the islands, in the sailboats, learning navigation, listening to the stories of the captains, observing marine life, there is no division of social studies, English and math. It just flows naturally as it does in our daily lives.”

Once back in the classroom, students develop projects about their expedition. Projects include developing a Web page, videos and reports.

Teachers got it started

The Adventure Education program was founded in 1992 by LMS teachers Chris Burt and Charlie Davies, both of whom had a passion for sailing. In 1992 the two teachers approached LMS principal Greg Willis for permission to take that first class on the two-hour sailing expedition as part of an “odyssey of the mind activity.”

Willis said recently that he was hesitant at first, but ultimately his trust of Burt and Davies led him to OK the trip. Later that year, Burt again approached Willis to request clearance for a sailing trip. But this time, the destination was the San Juan Islands. Wanting to take his class to the American Camp on San Juan Island, the site of the Pig Wars, Burt was looking for real-life contact with history for eighth-grade history class

After some research, the school allowed Burt and 17 students to board the Cutty Sark bound for the western coast of San Juan Island.

With Freundlich at the helm of the eighth-grade Adventure Education class these days and Susie Richards teaching seventh-grade adventurers with LMS media specialist Charles Snelling, the program is popular at the school. Students have planned all aspects of their journey into the wilderness, including menus, budget development and community partner contact.

“Outdoor education offers more self-directed learning and instead of just reading books, we are experiencing the subject,” said student Britney Hilleary

The trip is funded by community volunteers and partnerships, meaning it comes surprisingly cheap to those involved.

Similar programs on chartered vessels can cost schools and students thousands of dollars, Freundlich said. But the generosity of the participating ship captains and other volunteers make the trip a no- or low-cost program for the district and students. Each student pays $65, which Freundlich said “basically covers food.”

Richards’ seventh-grade class will sail for Sucia Island in the spring.