The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) awarded LEED Gold certification to the Beijing Olympic Village under the pilot LEED for Neighborhood Development certification program.

It’s the first Olympic Village to receive LEED certification. During the games, the Olympic Village houses around 17,000 athletes from around the world.

USGBC has also been supporting the formation of a new China Green Building Council and hopes to work with the China GBC as it promotes healthy building practices. This is especially important as China builds nearly half the world’s new buildings every year.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in August 2008

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What’s so special about it? Visitors can explore a bog, marsh, pond, stream, large ravine with suspension bridge, and a harbor — all among a beautiful second-growth forest with lots of plant and animal life.

The buildings at the six-acre, 18-building campus are designed to be extremely earth-friendly and to blend with the environment as much as possible. Features include composting toilets (they don’t stink!) and photovoltaic roof panels (a solar technology).

IslandWood provides comfortable indoor areas for kids to explore when they aren’t outside.

IslandWood is too wondrous to describe in a single blog post. To see some great photos of the structures, including a true tree house, visit this Metropolis article.

During the school year, the learning center focuses on their four-day overnight programs for 4-6 grade students in the Puget Sound area, but in the spring and summer various programs are available for kids of all ages.

Three-hour IslandWood tours are also offered. If you are going to be in the area, IslandWood is a 35-minute ferry ride from Seattle, WA.

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