by Cacique Claire

We worked under the hot Bahamian sun shoveling seaweed to build our little mound of nutrients. All the while we talked about what it meant to be at The Island School and how after everyone has gone home, every student here leaves a legacy. Which is exactly what we did today! Today was legacy day here at The Island School which meant we all split up into groups and worked on certain projects to beautify and improve the campus. The mission of our group was to help to give shade and protection to the aquaponics wet lab, by planting trees and bushes in front of it. To do this we laid out logs then put down tree branches and on top of that we layered seaweed and sand to give our plants nutrients to grow. While we were hauling the logs and shoveling the seaweed we all began to talk about what we were doing. I imagined returning to The Island School years from now, and looking over to the wet lab and seeing the tall trees, that were the babies we planted today. We all began talking about what it’s like here at The Island School, and what our wanted our own personal legacies to look like.

It’s been a nostalgic few days as we passed the half-way point in the semester Thursday. When you walk across the campus and see other projects from passed semesters it’s cool to think that other students did the same thing we did today, years ago. This is what The Island School is all about for me, the impact you leave on the community, and the earth itself. Today we made steps in leaving behind our own legacy, but it’s more than that. It made me think of all the other kinds of different impacts that the Fall’11 semester will leave here. And for me, my own impact. As we built on our own legacy, I felt like we built our own connection to the students from the past and to come in the future, all working together for a common cause, even if we’ve never met. Just as it is easier to work hard in the classroom when you know what you’re learning is meaningful, it’s so much enjoyable to work hard at a project when you think of the students for years to come that will benefit from the hard work you put in, on the campus.