Yearly Archives: 2012

Daily Update

Daily Update April 20, 2012

The campus has been a lot quieter with half the students gone. Lunch goes by quickly, and we now start cleaning the dishes even before seconds have been called. While K3 and K4 are camping on beaches or kayaking down the Sound, the remainder of the student body has been continuing with academics. It is a little different then the normal schedule, we have fewer classes but for longer periods of time.

Last night, we also went on a night dive. I was really excited to see the coral reefs at different time of day. My group prepared our tanks, jumped on the Cobia, and then headed to our dive sight. Something thing we were told to for was the coral reef nematocysts. Corals get 90% of their energy from photosynthesis from zooxanthellae (algae) that live inside of it. They get the other 10% from nematocysts or tentacle feeding, which paralyze small fish or invertebrate for them to eat. At night, when they can’t photosynthesize, many get energy from this other method. During the dive I saw some Lionfish, Surgeonfish, a School Master Snapper, and a Squirrel Fish. However, I thought one of the coolest parts of the night was ascending from the dive. As we bobbed there in the dark ocean, we looked up and saw the night sky filled with twinkling stars.

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Yesterday in Human Ecology, the class was broken up into three sections and taken around campus. Continue reading →

Eleutheros

Eleutheros

The Human Ecology, Histories, and Literature Departments have collaborated on a series ongoing personal reflective essays called Eleutheros. Each week students are asked to write a reflective essay that demonstrates their understanding of the themes from their coursework and effectively links these themes to their unique thoughts and experiences.  Enjoy reading these two articulate examples of how our students have deeply and personally engage with essential questions, important to their course of study at The Island School…

Prompt: What does it mean to have roots? How do roots and ancestry affect one’s understanding of self and others? How do they affect sense of belonging to a place?

Will Gold:  What it means to have roots can mean many things but what they all lead up to is today.  Roots are what give today integrity.  Your ancestry, where you’re from and how you came to be where you are today are all part of your roots.  Roots give you the strength to face tomorrow with the same sense of hope that you had for today. They create your worldview and who you are before you even know what hit you.

To some, having roots is to know and understand their family lineage.  Mr. Pinder (the man my group was assigned to interview on Settlement Day) would say,  “Roots are your father, your father’s father and your grandfather’s father and so on for as long as you can remember.”  When we asked how he thought this effected who he was today he said “It doesn’t affect who I am it only affects who you think I am.”  This implies that roots can be a way to stereotype people based on success and that society often judges people differently according to their roots. Is it an honor or prejudice to be standardized by your roots?  I suppose that all depends on where you came from.

In research class we explored the idea of shifting baselines. Continue reading →

Uncategorized

Island School Supports Ride for Hope

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Saturday April 14, 2012 The Cape Eleuthera Island School supported Eleuthera’s annual Ride for Hope, which raises money for cancer caring centers and cancer treatment programs. The Cape Eleuthera Island School has been supporting and donating to the annual bicycle race benefit since the very first race was organized by Stephen Holowesko and Susan Holowesko Larson, long time friends of the school. This year, The Island School and Cape Eleuthera Institute had their highest participation in history with 23 riders from both organizaions. The group collectively rode more than 1,200 miles for the cause. John Dennis the Principle Managing director at Woodrock and Co., longtime rider and Island School alumi parent (Grace Dennis Su’10), sponsored the jerseys for the entire team. The sleek, professional and fashionable shirts were marked with the iconic Island School mutton snapper, Cape Eleuthera Foundation sea star, Cape Eleuthera Institute conch, and Deep Creek Middle School sand dollar. Though coveted by non-riders, Chris Maxey asserted “You gotta sweat to get the jersey.”

This year also marked another exciting first: it was the very first time that the entire campus has picked up and headed down island to support the even. Forty-eight students and additional faculty spent the day organizing, moving bikes, marking down participants as they crossed the finish line, and of course, cheering! One Island School student, Peter Graham, biked alongside his Potcake Cycling Club and finished with 50 miles under his tires.

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Enjoy the following reflection from the perspective of a student supporter and Ride for Hope volunteer Dana Colihan: Everyone thought that waking up at 6:15 for morning exercise was bad, until we had to wake up at 4:45 on Saturday morning. After a quick granola breakfast everyone hopped in the bus and we were on our way to Governor’s Harbor. We were going to support Ride For Hope, an annual bike ride for cancer awareness. Continue reading →

Daily Update

Daily Update by Dana April 16, 2012

After only one week of posts from Mac (who is now out on Kayak expedition!) we will be hearing from a new blogger for the next ten day cycle. Welcome Dana Colihan as she voices the Island School student experience to you, until Mac returns for another round.

Dana: After the Ride for Hope on Saturday, we got back to campus and for a night activity went to the inner loop for a game of capture-the-flag. It was pretty intense. Odd numbers in the circle were black, even numbers white. (The black team is better). I spent most of the time in the woods. I had some good bonding time with nature and the dirt. Everyone had a really fun time, but was pretty tired by the end of the day.

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This weekend we also found out what our kayak rotation lists were. Everyone had been pestering the faculty for the past week, but they hadn’t let anything slip. Continue reading →

Daily Update, Uncategorized

Daily Updates by Mac McDonald

Starting with his Run-Swim run down Monday, for the last week, Mac McDonald has been our new blogger. Enjoy his insights into a new weekly ritual: Water Polo Wednesday. Also, Friday was an extra long morning exercise so our apologies for only three updates this week. Look for more Monday as we mark the transition into the Kayak Rotations period of the semester journey.

Mac: The past few days have been busy on campus. Last night our Eleutheros was due. This week’s Eleutheros included the challenging combination of Literature and Human Ecology classes. The prompts, crafted by each individual classes, included asking about what it meant to be married to one’s hart, a question of awareness, and to talk about the affect of undustry vs. nature. Due on Friday, is our Oral Video Project for Histories, which is the videos we took from our Settlement Days. Included in this Histories project is a reflective essay. In this essay, we are to talk about our own bias, perspectives, and positionality while interviewing our own settlement day families. This will be a challenging and reflective piece to write considering the many varying experiences each settlement group had.

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Yesterday was weekly Water Polo Wednesday. Every Wednesday during Exploration time, we have a water polo game. Continue reading →

Educational Programs

Lake Highland Preparatory School’s Archeology Trip to Island School

by Eric Hagen

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We joked that our parents would have to come visit us at the end of the week because we weren’t going back to the United States. Amazingly, though, our stay has come to an abrupt end, and our normal days in Orlando, without ORCA showers, giant cobia, or “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down,” must unfortunately resume. But the ecologically beneficial and ultimately fun lessons we learned here, from archeology to conservation, will be engrained in our memories from the  nuances of this fantastic trip for the rest our lives. Continue reading →

Daily Update

Daily Update April 10, 2012

Yesterday afternoon, students received their midterm grades and had 10min meetings with each of their teachers to talk about their individual strengths and weaknesses. The grades were a progress report, and a good way to find out where you stood. Last night, students started to write their letters home. This uncomfortable process involved most people saying, “Why can’t I just call them?” Our advisors just shook their head and said to keep writing. By the end of our draft we all realized the real purpose of the letter was not only show our parents how we had been doing and our goals for the end of the semester, but to reflect and take ownership of the work we have been doing.

Olympic music filled the air as the sun rose over campus. This morning at 6:30, north side students came out in their sweats and flip-flops and south side students came to circle with their run-swim shoes and bathing suits. South side was eager to do just as well as north did yesterday. Circle ended and the run-swimmers began their warm up jog, Continue reading →