Monthly Archives: November 2012

Student Update

Student Update November 08, 2012

Over the past few days on campus, everyone has been really excited to get started on our Human Ecology final projects. We had our first meeting on Monday morning to talk about issues around campus, Eleuthera, and back home, which could use improvement.  After discussion, we found other people who had similar interest, and then talked about potential solutions.  My group, which also includes Maren and Remington, is trying to come up with a way that students can wash some of our own more urgent laundry on campus (exercise clothes, stains, etc.) without taking away business from the local business that washes our laundry every week.  It has been interesting to listen to the other projects that students have in mind, and exciting to see ways that the impact of our community is going to be improved!

After Human Eco on Monday, we went to DCMS for Community Outreach. Continue reading →

Uncategorized

Biodigestion in Action

Over the course of the last several weeks, Island School students spent time kayaking, experienced a hurricane, explored the majority of the island, and additionally, were able to gain intimate knowledge of many of the systems that make the campus run. Most notably, aquaponics, aquaculture, permaculture, and biodigestion were featured as Human Ecology modules during the kayak rotation. During the students’ time learning about biodigestion, they were asked to take a look at the ways Island School falls short of its goals of self sustainability and try to find some solutions. In doing so, students’ learned about the systems that support human life on campus, where waste comes from, how humans get energy, and how we can improve as a community. The focus of their work was mainly turning waste to energy, which led to some hands on work with the biodigestion system. Students learned about the anaerobic process, how biodigestion mimics natural systems, how renewable energy is generated by microbes, and eventually how to put that energy to use. After dinner circle on Wednesday, students ventured to the biodigester to check out some of the applications of biogas. They observed running the gas through a conventional burner system and explored possibilities for how this campus system could develop into the future. [slideshow]

Alumni

Rob Neely (SP’99) Visits Campus

John Schatz, Rob Neely (SP'99), Shanti Nulu
John Schatz, Rob Neely (SP’99), Shanti Nulu

Rob Neely, a student during the pioneer semester of The Island School, as well as a faculty member Fall 2003-Spring 2004 visited campus last week with his fiancé, Shanti Nulu. During his visit, he had the opportunity to make a presentation to the Fall 2012 students, showing them photos of what campus looked like back in Spring 1999 and sharing stories of his experience more than 10 years ago. In addition to kicking back and enjoying his vacation, Rob got to interact with the current students at meals and reunite with John Schatz with whom he worked during his year as a teacher. It was great to have you back, Rob!

research

Conch Research Project Update

“CONCHE DIEM”

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, and although the winds have died down, visibility in the water is next to nil. We rely on good visibility to be certain that we actually see all of the conch along our transects. Because of this, our full research day has been grounded; however, we are trying to make the most of it. We have already begun writing up our results and streamlining the information, finding trends in our data and creating graphs. We are also working on creating our posters that we will present at the Research Symposium at the end of the semester. Here is a picture of us working hard, even inside the classroom. 

Cape Eleuthera Institute

Job Openings at Cape Eleuthera Institute

The Cape Eleuthera Institute currently has a number of  job openings. If you are interested in applying to the CEI Aquaculture Manager,  CEI Aquaponics System Manager, Assistant Lead Educator, Early Childhood Educator, or Administrative Assistant positions please visit our website here.

We are also accepting applications for internships for Spring, Summer and Fall 2013. If you or someone you know is interested, you can find more information on our website here.

For all other inquiries, please contact info@ceibahamas.org.

Student Update

Student Update November 5, 2012

Dinner circle on Saturday night was full of energy as all of our DCMS buddies were with us for the haunted house! After eating dinner with our buddies, the pres. room was full of flour, and fake blood made out of cornstarch, food coloring and water, preparing for the haunted house.  From zombies to rag dolls, we were excited to give our buddies a good scare.  [slideshow] I walked through the haunted house with a group of DCMS students, lead by Lexi, Lauren C. and Connor. Shortly after arriving at the farm, Connor was dragged into a pile of leaves, and instead of proceeding to walk and be chased by zombies as intended, the DCMS kids stayed back to try to save Connor, and some of them were so scared they started to cry. The rest of the walk through the farm wasn’t too scary until we arrived to the end of the farm where we were greeted with the image of Jake eating Chris’s guts, what were really bananas.  We continued to walk to the boathouse.  Continue reading →

Student Update

Student Update November 3, 2012

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Hello, I’m Cate, and I’ll be writing the blog for the next couple weeks.  I’m from Boston and go to Nobles, just outside the city.  Recently, I and many other students have been missing fall, but it was great to get a feel for that these past few days.  The temperatures dropped after the hurricane, and a lot of leaves were lost, so we are getting our “fall” down here at The Island School.  To add to the feeling, we celebrated Halloween on Thursday night with a costume contest.  Some of my favorites were teacher impersonations, the Island School “pets”, as well as a throwback to my favorite childhood TV show, Rocket Power.  Thursday night was also the first we were all back together after the hurricane.  K3 returned from Down Island, and K4 from kayak; it is great to be reunited and together again for the rest of the semester! For the students on academic rotations, Thursday was our all-day Research day.  Most groups did not go out in the morning, but we were all able to go out by the afternoon.  My research group, Climate Change, went out with the Bonefish group and after what seemed to be an unsuccessful afternoon, we were able to catch about fifteen bonefish right before we were about to leave!  Friday was our day off, and we spent some time preparing for the haunted house we are putting on for our DCMS buddies tonight.  Everyone is excited for the haunted house, and hope we can pull everything off and live up to last year’s!

Student Update, Uncategorized

Student Update November 1, 2012

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For the first time today, since the hurricane, everybody will be back on campus. It is the last day of academic rotations, as K4 will return from their down island trip and K4 will return from their kayak. Finally, even through hurricane Sandy, we made it through our kayak and academic rotations. Today is also Island School Halloween. Usually, we would have set up a haunted house around campus for the Deep Creek Middle School kids, but because of the hurricane school was closed for a period of time and we had to move it to this Saturday. I am even more excited about having it later because that means that we will be able to do it with all of campus instead of doing it with just our academic rotation. The theme this year is supposed to be similar to the Walking Dead, a HBO TV series, which means the entire student body will be dressed as zombies and chase the middle school-ers around for the night. Needless to say we are all excited.

Morning exercise today was big surprise. Today was scheduled to be a run-swim, but turned about to have a Halloween twist. [slideshow] We were given flag belts at the start and told “wear these so that we can see you in the water.” As I swam across the first cut, I could see a few bodies lying on the ground just in front of the tree line, but had no idea what was going on. Continue reading →