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UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP RESULTS IN LEED CERTIFICATION
Sustainable Practices Protect Pristine Wilderness Area

SEATTLE — The North Cascades Environmental Learning Center – a uniquely designed and constructed facility created by the partnership of Seattle City Light, North Cascades National Park and the North Cascades Institute – has earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” or LEED® Silver certification.

LEED Silver certification recognizes a high level of achievement in sustainability and integration with natural systems.

“The partnership on this project is truly unique,” City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco said. “By working together, we have succeeded in creating a wonderful facility for learning and it has realized our commitment to demonstrate stewardship as well as resource protection for this beautiful area that is so vital to us and our customers.”

» Continue reading Learning Center awarded LEED Silver!

The 2009 Spring Mountain School session has come to an end. For the members of Cohort 8 our days of teaching abiotic and biotic lessons in the North Cascades National Park are finished, thankfully only in the formal Mountain School sense. Microscope labs, web of life, silent hikes and glacier lessons are things of the past and the feeling is bitter sweet.

» Continue reading The end of the 2009 spring Mountain School

Diablo Lake, WA– In celebration of Independence Day, North Cascades Institute is offering the next 10 families of 3 or more who register for the Fourth of July weekend Family Getaway at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center $100 off the total registration fee!

» Continue reading Explosive deal for Fourth of July Family Getaway

With a busy week behind us and another looming ahead Ian and I decided nothing sounded better than staying close to home.  Of course “staying close to home” while residing at the North Cascades Institute environmental learning center presents a handful of hiking and exploring options, ranging from technical climbs to lake side strolls.  We decided a leisurely hike was in order and headed up the Pyramid Lake trail. 

» Continue reading Pyramid Lake trail….a beautiful spring jaunt

I am always amazed at the difference a few days makes.  I leave the learning center for five days and come home to gentians, lilies and orchids!  Just wanted to share a few pictures and keep everyone up to date on what’s blooming in the North Cascades.

» Continue reading The colors of spring

Last week the Cohort 8 graduate students headed to the islands of Diablo Lake for class.  The topic of the day: island biogeography, which is the study of the distribution and abundance of species on physical and habitat islands.  I won’t go into too many details, although I think the study of habitat islands is fascinating, what I want to share with you are pictures of what we discovered.

» Continue reading A day on the islands

Last weekend 43 volunteers gathered at the learning center and pulled on their work gloves.  Shovels, pulsakis, buckets and pruning shears in hand, these volunteers joined NCI staff and North Cascades National Park employees in readying the learning center campus for a busy summer season.  Stewardship projects completed over the weekend including mulching plants in restoration areas around campus, pulling alders along the road, clearing the play field of stumps, cataloging library books and removing invasive species.

Mike Brondi sharing his knowledge of restoration and native plants

» Continue reading Pulling alders, mulching and making friends

“That’s a cougar!” Well, maybe… We saw a brown blur slink over the crest of the island. Whatever it was, this was a big, brown mammal. One might say it was tawny. We had been paddling around Diablo Lake for a few hours and were now fighting the wind to get back to the Learning Center and some much deserved lunch, but our curiosity demanded that we pursue the mysterious animal that had somehow appeared on an island in the middle of a frigid lake in the shadowless sunshine of mid day.

» Continue reading A coyote in Diablo Lake

Spring Mountain School is so fun!  Middle school through high school students get to study forest carnivores, learn about and explore habitat around the learning center and they get to use field equipment.  How exciting is that?

» Continue reading Spring Mountain School

Unbelievable!  So many plants are pushing their way out of the ground.  Just a quick glimpse at what is rapidly unfurling and flowering around the learning center.

Top two photos: Lady fern fiddleheads

Fragile fern fiddlehead

Bracken fern fiddlehead

» Continue reading Fairy slippers, lady fern and trailing yellow violet