Our Impact
Closing the opportunity gap for Boston's youth
All young people deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential. Research shows that by age 12, students growing up in underserved communities have had 6,000 fewer hours to learn outside the classroom than peers from well-resourced communities. Our flagship program, Connections, plays a crucial role in closing this gap.
Measuring Our Impact
What students learn on Thompson Island helps harness experiences in the natural world to enhance children's ability to question, observe, think creatively and use their imagination. Thompson Island Outward Bound’s outdoor education programs build confidence and resilience, develop students' skills to work effectively with others, and improve academic achievement. These outcomes have been documented by external evaluators.
Four Pillars of Growth
Academic: Students demonstrate improved school performance in ELA, math, and science.
Social-emotional development: Students show increased self-awareness and self-confidence, as well as increased understanding and compassion toward others.
Leadership: Students demonstrated the ability to set goals, inspire, and guide others to achieve them; increased their ability to collaborate, communicate, solve problems, and resolve conflicts.
Service: Students demonstrated social and environmental responsibility, and a desire to actively engage in service to others
Evidence of Success
Thompson Island Outward Bound uses evaluation as an ongoing process to discover what aspects of our youth programs are working and how to continuously improve them. We partner with researchers and educators at Harvard Medical School, Wellesley College, UC Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science, Boston Public Schools, the National Park Service, and Boston After School and Beyond.
This edition of the Evidence of Success highlights our science work and its impact on Boston students.
"Every time my daughter would come home from Thompson Island, she would tell me how she learned about a different part of science and asked me to take her to the library. This program was a blessing."
—Mireille Louis, Parent
Learning Through Challenge
On Thompson Island, students have the opportunity to rise to new challenges and discover their full potential.
