by Caciques Katie T. and Helen

Helen:   This morning ended the final run-swim for the Fall 2011 semester, with a mixture of relief and sorrow. Another early morning of prepping to send us out onto the now well-known course, into temperatures that are a little bit colder and waves are a little big bigger than usual considering it’s December now. Waiting for the air horn to sound though, I was brought back to that first time when I didn’t really know what to expect when Maxey told us we would be doing a run-swim every Monday, and be timed three times that semester. Of course, at the beginning, imagining that final run-swim was impossible, and it even seemed impossible to imagine yesterday morning, but now it’s over. Some saw improvements since the beginning of the semester, as small as a couple of seconds, a few minutes, like myself, or even as much as 10 minutes. Because of the rough conditions, some increased their time, but you can’t control the weather. And then there were those people who were so fast in the beginning of the semester that they would have literally had to fly to decrease their times. The thing about run-swims is that you can feel yourself getting stronger each time you do one. The longs stretches seem a little bit shorter, the transitions between land and water are a little bit easier and jumping over that once daunting wall is a piece of cake. For myself, my time doesn’t matter as much as how dead I feel at the end of it, and after today’s, I felt surprisingly okay. After the two and a half hour Super Swim, running and swimming for 20 minutes didn’t seem like such a difficult task. And with our final run-swim comes the end of all physical assessments for the semester. We’ve come a long way since the first run-swim in September and it’s kind of hard to let them go.

Katie T:   This afternoon we spent time in our advisories working on our DOLs and portfolios.  The portfolio is essentially a culmination of all of our work here, and the DOL, meaning Demonstration of Learning, will be our final big assignment.  The portfolio is necessary for our schools to know what we’ve done with our time here. The idea is that our teachers will be more understanding of our semester in The Bahamas once they see how hard we’ve worked in academics.  But the portfolios aren’t limited to academics, Continue reading →

by Caciques Benji and Grace

Today was our last long block for our Human Ecology projects. The projects are designed and carried out by students to address problems found around campus or back home. This semester, many projects are based around energy use or food. Examples of projects are community outreach surveys, replacing the jam used in the kitchen, finding an alternative sweetener, and planning healthier, local meals at The Island School and at sending schools. Other projects include making and ordering eco-friendly art supplies, mapping coral reefs to see potential impacts of a development, raising awareness about energy use, organizing the resource area and recycling bins around campus, and helping solve problems with lettuce growth in the CEI hydroponic beds. Island School students have been working hard on their projects and are excited to share them with the community on Friday. It’s incredible to see how interested and passionate students are about their projects, and many students plan to apply what they’ve done at The Island School to their lives back home. Continue reading →

by Caciques AJ and Zeke

Today consisted mainly of preparing for our final projects in human ecology and marine ecology class. We had a yoga class in the morning with Bryna, who is visiting yoga instructor from Rhode Island, which helped us work out all the aches and pains we were still carrying from the super swim. Unfortunately the boat house was being used so swim track had to squeeze into the presentation room, although it was tight, all of us had a few laughs watching ourselves try to pretzel our bodies into healing poses. After breakfast, we launched into our first class, human ecology where we worked on our final presentations for our research projects. Then we had our last community meeting, where we also shared our favorite moments here at The Island School, and what were exited for when we go home. Although it was sad to know we only have a week left here, there was an exited vibe coming from the meeting thinking about our new lives we are going to lead back home. After lunch we had a long block of marine ecology in which all 47 of us rotated through stations in all of the classrooms. We started off class by having a harkness discussion on a paper called “To Live with the Sea,” where we talked about an Marine Protected Area in Madagascar and what made it successful. We then talked about how we could implement their methods here in South Eleuthera.  We used the rest of the period working on our final assignments: our No Blue No Green projects. These consist of a 2-3 minute speech addressing these questions: “How is the ocean important? (ecologically, culturally, economically, ect.)”  and, “What is our connection and responsibility to the ocean?” Teschna and Peter were happy to edit our papers during this block and give suggestions so that when we handed them in they were close to perfection. Sad as it may seem, this summed up our Marine Ecology course here at The Island School.

by Cacique Anika

This morning, after waking up at 6:15, we all changed into our athletic shorts and bathing suits, ready to jump in the water or onto the road for round two of the half marathon and super swim. Just kidding! The day began with a light morning exercise. A short run to the marina and 15 minutes of stretching for the swimmers, and a jog around the clubhouse for the runners. After we all devoured a delicious breakfast, we changed into our uniforms for a grueling day of classes.

In English, we read our last pages of Omeros, an epic by Derek Walcott about his home country St. Lucia, and bid goodbye to the characters we had grown so fond of the past few months. I remember the first day I opened the book, and read the starting chapter about canoes, rum, ants, and tourists. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, and I was convinced that I would never be able to understand, or enjoy the book. Three months later, after discovering the symbolism behind Philoctete’s wound, journeying with Achille to his lost home in Africa, and spending countless classes trying to find out who the father of Helen’s child was, I can’t believe that our experience with Omeros has come to an end. It may have been frustrating trying to annotate difficult passages and identify the complex symbols throughout the epic, but the sense of accomplishment we all agreed we had gained through understanding Omeros is so gratifying.

In math, we scrambled around campus trying to find all the solar energy grids, Continue reading →