Today at morning circle all of the girls surprised the whole community. They lined up in order of their circle numbers, and each girl had a different letter painted on their stomachs. The letters spelled out “Happy Birthday Dale, We love you” After everyone saw what they had spelled out, Dale stepped into the middle of the circle and we sang Happy Birthday. Although the boys were very confused, the celebration was a great example of how tight knit our community is.

The excitement continued as the caciques announced a break from Run and Swim tracks and that we  would instead be playing team sports….. and yoga. Students played basketball, water polo and I had an awesome game of soccer with a few other students at the Marina. Tsering scored at least 100 goals, and Anya stole the ball from me far more times than I’m willing to admit.

Human Ecology final projects are in full swing, and we have begun to have long block classes to work with our groups. We all are addressing a different problem at the Island School or beyond, and we work in groups to come up with a sustainable solution. Everyone is very excited to get started, and all the projects proposed are very promising. One problem students are addressing is the over-use of dive sites and how human contact can be a detriment to the health of the reef if it is visited over and over. An exciting solution a group proposed is attempting to sink a broken down bus at the saddle to create an artificial reef and an exciting new dive site.

As we prepare for parents to arrive, life at the Island School is very busy, but still just as fun.

My name is Jack Martin and I am from Philadelphia, PA. Newly assigned to write the upcoming student updates, I am excited to share my experience here over the next few weeks.
This past Tuesday was one of the most exciting Swim track workouts because we were finally allowed to swim in the current cut at the Marina. The cut doubles as a challenging exercise and a relaxing, lazy river, depending on which direction the water is flowing. Until this week, the cut had been off limits to students because of the strong currents and the not-so-friendly residents that swim through it. Although Scotty assured us the bull sharks were gone, having passed on seasonally to different waters, we spotted a small lemon shark about 10 seconds after we began our swim! A few girls shrieked and everyone stopped to look, but we were all quickly assured that a little shark like that is far more afraid of us than we are of him.

Yesterday, the shark research team had a second encounter with a Lemon shark, only this one was a little bigger… I was leaning over the front of the boat checking our fishing line, when I noticed one of our hooks was sagging deep into the water. As I began to work my way towards the hook, I spotted him. A big, beautiful 7-foot Lemon was hooked cleanly. This was our very first Lemon shark we caught this semester, and a very exciting field day on the boat. Two lemon sharks in two days is pretty typical of my life here at Island School… I wonder how many people in the world can say that?

Yesterday was beautifully sunny day. After our run-swim and breakfast, we all met with our research groups to start compiling and analyzing our results to present on Parent’s Weekend.

The afternoon was especially exciting because we had a couple hours to brainstorm for our final Human Eco projects. We used “open space technology” which basically means that we try and inspire creativity in a casual, conversational setting. We split up into conversation groups around campus that had themes such as: food, waste, water, energy, awareness, etc. Students and teachers alike spent time throwing ideas out there and getting closer to a specific problem that they want to focus on for their project. The goal of the day was not to come up with any solutions, but to identify a specific problem that they feel passionate about addressing, and find other students who share the same interests. Exiting ideas about solutions were also being discussed just because people couldn’t wait to get started. Some problems that were picked were: lack of pollinators on Eleuthera (bees), imported food, overfishing of conch, lack of activities for Deep Creek kids, plastic pollution, and more.

We finished Human Eco a little early due to people’s enthusiasm, so we got to finish our dorm deep cleans with exploration time left in the afternoon. After dinner, we had a night class and started to plan our Art Show for Parent’s Weekend. We voted for two curators (congrats Danny and Noelle!) to be the creative directors and help lead the process. I am confident that they will do a fantastic job.

This morning we woke up to a slightly grey, windy day. Swim track had an awesome morning, however, because we swam in current cut down by the marina. We did laps, first swimming with the current, and once we got to the bridge we turned around and pushed against the current all the way back to the start. We saw a baby nurse shark, a barracuda, and lots of other fish.

Chef Emery leaves tomorrow, who has provided delicious food for The Island School for a number of semesters. He was a student here himself, and we have many memories of hanging out with him in the kitchen, hearing his exciting dinner announcements at circle, and of course eating his food. He will be terribly missed, but we are wishing him goof luck in his travels!

On Saturday, we had classes in the morning, and enjoyed some fun activities in the afternoon like deep-sea fishing, free diving, and making a bottle wall. That night, all of Island School Spring ’13 was reunited! K3 and K4 came home from their trips, marking the end of kayak rotations. It was a little overwhelming to suddenly go from 12 girls in the dorm to 24, but after the hugging and screaming frenzy was over, everyone had a really nice time catching up with friends about the past week. At dinner circle, I looked around at our big complete circle, heard the count off end at 48, and I couldn’t help but smiling. I didn’t realize how much I missed our whole community and I felt a real sense of love for it at that moment. After dinner that night, we had a fun game of sardines followed by delicious ice cream sundaes and an outdoor movie screening of National Treasure. The next day was Sunday, and everyone enjoyed a well-deserved day off. In the spirit of Mother’s Day, we let the kitchen ladies have the day off and a bunch of students helped Scotty and Taylor cook brunch for everyone. We did this on Easter, too, because we feel the kitchen ladies deserve it and we always have a blast cooking anyways.

All the students had a nice time getting five minutes to call home for Mother’s Day. To all the moms reading this: thank you for having the courage to send your kids here, for raising these wonderful students that I spend every day with, and for giving us the opportunity of a lifetime. I promise you will love what we will bring back home. We love you!

The rest of the Sunday was filled with exploration and cooking dinner for those who wanted to help out. In study hours we got some work done, read Omeros, did some research, and started to outline our analytical essays that are due to wrap up our tourism unit. This morning we woke up and went for a run-swim, which we haven’t done in a while. My group swam through current cut (against the current!) and had a great workout. Today consists of research and brainstorming for our final Human Eco projects!