Monthly Archives: May 2013

Deep Creek Middle School

DCMS Early Act Service Club Cleans Ocean Hole Park for Earth Day

The Early Act students of DCMS have committed to doing a community clean-up in each of the settlements in South Eleuthera. Last weekend, the group did an extra special cleaning of The Ocean Hole Park in honor of Earth Day. The park, famous for its blue hole, was having a fair that evening. Students cleaned the paths and bushes of trash before realizing that there was a lot of floating debris in the actual blue hole. Not to be deterred, seven students jumped in fully clothed and recovered 2 bags of Styrofoam, miscellaneous plastic bags, a sinking kayak and chunks of wood!

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Uncategorized

Former Island School Literature Fellow Continues to Use the Harkness Table

As all Island School alumni can attest, discussions around the Harkness table played a major role in their education during their semester. A former Island School Literature Teaching Fellow, Ellie Moore, currently teaches at the Alzar School, a semester program in Cascade, Idaho. She demonstrated the collaboration between Math and English for her students by designing, building, and then finally using their own Harkness table. Read more about their process on their blog.

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Student Update, Uncategorized

Student Update May 9, 2013 (a little late!)

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The screams and squeals that echoed around campus marked K3 ‘s return home last night. The reunion was sweet but short-lived, however, for they depart once again this morning for their Down Island Trips. K1 and K2 have been enjoying their academic week on campus. We finished up our Human Ecology Intensives yesterday, which were focused on Sustainable Farming, Aquaponics, or Plastics. Each group spent a total of 9 hours working in these groups, learning in depth about the topics. Sustainable Farming learned about permaculture and all the systems we have on our own farm that imitate natural ones. We spent a handful of hours constructing an herb spiral. We made an escalating rock wall spiral and layered compost, cardboard, straw, pig manure, dirt, and seaweed on top. We put rotting logs on the bottom of the layers because they act like sponges and retain a lot of moisture. The purpose of the lasagna-like soil is to help create rich soil that stays wet, therefore reducing the amount of water needed. The purpose of the spiral shape is to create microclimates. The elevation in the middle creates shade for the sides, and the elevation encourages drainage of water, making the bottom of the spiral a shadier, wetter microclimate, and the very top the sunniest. Each group made videos about their projects and prepared 15-minute presentations for our last class. We had a lot of fun learning from our peers and watching their creative videos. The aquaponics group twisted some comedy into theirs, and scored quite a few laughs from the room.

Otherwise, students here are continuing with morning exercise, with run and swim tracks doing routing workouts this morning. Our pole swim was especially tricky due to the current and the waves. Definitely swallowed a considerable amount of water. We had a long exercise two days ago, and everyone is getting excited, as the Super Swim looms closer and closer. We are praying for good conditions.

This week we also went on our night dives. This was probably one of my favorite nights at The Island School. Simply being out on the boats as the sun was setting, the water unusually glassy, was a ludicrously beautiful sight. Our group descended, equipped with dive lights, and we immediately saw what I am positive to be an 8-foot long loggerhead sea turtle. It was so big it almost looked prehistoric. Our group sat still watching it for a good while until we thought our lights were bothering it, and I was so excited that I was exclaiming to myself through my regulator and squeezing my dive buddy’s arm. There was a lot of other life to see down there that we explored during our dive, but that turtle was something I will never forget. I went to sleep that night smiling; so happy with the place I am living, the experiences I am having, and the people I get to share them with.

Alumni

Island School Alumni Class Notes

Get caught up on what your fellow Island School alumni have been up to lately! If you want to send in an update, email alumni@islandschool.org.

SPRING 1999:

Class Agent: Joshua Lichtman

FALL 1999:

Class Agent: Lee Taylor

SPRING 2000:

Class Agent: Monique Johnson

Mike Brown is in the process of moving to Charlotte, NC with his wife Liz and their puppy McKenna. He is starting a new product management job and looking to move from a small apartment to an actual house. Mike looks forward to changing things up and try out a new city and hopes to catch up with fellow Island Schoolers passing through the Charlotte area! Ryan Eavey is pedicabbing in Boston, Austin, and New Orleans. He is also working at Hubway this summer. Monique Johnson is in the process of applying to business school and is looking forward to the summer. Suzy Newbury is finishing up her Ph.D. She got to see Andy Monk in LA this past fall, and spent some quality time with Chris, Pam, and Christian at Francesca Forrestal’s wedding. Fun times! Elizabeth Rosenberg is still in NYC, living downtown and working in merchandising for J. Crew. Elizabeth and her mother, Dee, went on a girls surfing trip to Costa Rica in March which was really fun. In a few weeks, they are going away with her father to Greece and Turkey in a few weeks which should also be a cool adventure! She loves living in the Big Apple but not curing any diseases quite yet…Abby (Jenkins) Watson moved to Madison, Wisconsin with her husband in 2012 but recently moved back to Portland, Oregon. She workw for a cycling apparel company called Rapha and spends most of her free time cycling.

FALL 2000:

Class Agent: Richard Woodhull

Andrew Thaler received his PhD in Marine Science and Conservation from Duke University last August and is Continue reading →

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Student Update

Student Update May 6, 2013

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As K1+2 settle into our academic week, sending thoughts of good weather to our friends on kayak, we fondly remember our expeditions that we have returned from. After 8-day, my group had a day off to rest and play, and then we headed off on our Down Island Trips. Emma, Caleb, and Louisy led K1 and made the trip exciting and hilarious the 12 students. Our van was packed to the brim with backpacks, food, sleeping bags, tents, and hammocks. Caleb kept a cool playlist of music playing on our van rides, and we had a lot of fun touring the island and seeing how tourism has affected Eleuthera. Down Island Trips get their name not because we are traveling south down the island, because we are actually traveling northward up the island. We call it a Down Island Trip honoring the fact that we are going down with the current.

The first day, we went to Harbor Island. This is a very poplar and expensive tourist destination. It is a tiny island accessible by a short water taxi ride from North Eleuthera. Once there, we were given a couple hours to explore the island and interview people about our central question: How does tourism shape a place? We talked to shop owners, hotel employees, and the like. We observed a big difference from the main island of Eleuthera in the high-end shops and hotels. Continue reading →

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Uncategorized

Student Update May 4, 2013

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Ivy Wappler will be featured as our next student update writer for the week. Having just returned from the expeditionary period of school, she has a lot to say about her incredible experiences: Today K4 will be departing for their 8-day kayak trip after breakfast. K3 is in the middle of their trip as I write this, probably enjoying Lighthouse Beach and its pink powdered sugar sand. They might even be on solo right now. Yesterday, K1 and K2 returned home from their 3-day Down Island Trips, which focus on our Histories class and the effects of tourism on the island.

My kayak group was first to depart on 8-day around two weeks ago. We spent three days kayaking to Lighthouse Beach, which was especially satisfying because each day there were two new student leaders who decided with the group how far we would paddle. On our own direction, we reached Lighthouse Beach a day early, camping in pretty creeks along the way. We reached our final destination in time to enjoy a day to explore and play. As we came back from exploring the cliffs that day and were swimming at the little secluded beach beyond them, a student accurately AMBA0269put it that it felt as if we were “living in a screensaver. ” That day, I officially deemed Lighthouse Beach as the most beautiful place I have ever been. The next morning, we started our solos.  Solo was one of the biggest challenges I have experienced at The Island School so far. We were alone for 48 hours, and I chose not to accept the small food rations and see if I could subsist on nothing but the coconuts I could harvest. It was a challenge of the body and the mind, as I experienced the effects of minimal food and the vulnerability that comes with being truly alone. I am confident that I learned new things about myself, and I also experienced a couple profound emotional realizations, which I believe surfaced in my mind as a result of the time, space, and circumstances in solo.

It was a challenging and rewarding and completely new and unique experience for everyone. We are sending good luck to those on K3 who are in the midst of it right now!

Student Update

Student Update April 30, 2013

(As many of you know, this is an expeditionary period for Island School. And, in the spirit of such, we are entering a three day period where there will be no students on campus! All four groups will either be on a Kayak trip or else their Down Island Trip. Consequently, we will not have any student updates until this upcoming Saturday. Standby for that and look forward to the incredible stories that will come out of the next week!)

On Saturday morning, we all woke up at 4:15 AM to head to Harbor Island for the 5-mile walk/run in support of breast cancer. It was barely dawn when we began the run –the full moon shone brightly as the sun began to rise. There was some confusion during the race: we all thought we were running a 5K rather than 5 miles, so we kept running and running, expecting to reach and not understanding why it was taking so long. It wasn’t until we were done, that we realized the run was actually 5 miles. Regardless, the run was beautiful, and it was nice to be out in the settlement supporting Cancer research. Cancer is a huge problem here; the Bahamas is a leading country in hereditary breast cancer.

Anyways, our academic rotations have come to an end. The past couple of days were very long, and full of literature harknesses, math tests, and histories discussions. We finished our Human Ecology intensives today and presented to the class with our group videos on the individual subjects. It was really interesting to hear the different things everyone had done. In Research, we have gotten to the point where we are analyzing our data to form conclusions.  K1 is coming back from their kayak trip today, and I can feel the anticipation in the dorm for the reunion! That also means that we (K3 & K4) have to start getting ready for our down-island and kayak rotations. I am both nervous and really excited for the upcoming experience!