by Clem TItsworth

Happy Thanks Giving from The Island School! Yesterday, the day began with a well-deserved sleep-in and an optional free dive. At 6:30 a group of friends and I went out on the free dive to Tunnel Rock. At Tunnel Rock my free diving buddy Cutter and I dove down and observed the several Parrot Fish and Queen Angel Fish swimming beneath us. Several kids also successfully swam through the swim through at Tunnel Rock which is one of the longest ones we go to. At 7:45 we boarded the boat and raced back to school to be in time for 8:00 circle. After normal morning activities were finished, we had our final research classes of the semester. My team spent our time making our final poster for our upcoming Research Symposium, catching a few lobsters, and discussing a way to continue our Lionfish project next semester. We had several ideas which will hopefully be picked to be in next semester’s curriculum. The second half of the day was a large Human Ecology block where change bomb groups met and worked on their projects. My team, Team Meathead, consisting of five boys doing resource construction, worked on sanding down sand and glass aggregated tables we made, making forms for these tables, and making bio char in the bio char unit we built. It was a very successful day because we completed all our goals we had set out to do.

Later in the night Dr. Edith Widder, the mother of the Medusa, a large underwater camera which can go down into the ocean 2000 meters, and our key note speaker for the Research Symposium arrived for her stay for a few days. All students were very excited to talk to her and learn more about her deep water knowledge. The night went on normally and students went to bed. In the morning the boys dorms woke up to screams of “HAPPY THANKSGIVING” from our peers. We all went out to circle and the exercise for today was announced. Today we had our own advisory thanks giving day Turkey Bowl. Each advisory was dressed in their own uniforms and were ready to play. We ran down to the marina fields and began to play. After the several games had been played it was time or the finals. Jon F.’s advisory versus Kate’s advisory were the two teams left. Each team had one possession and Kate’s advisory emerged victorious after throwing a hail marry down the field to Liam for a touchdown. It was crazy. Kate’s team won the turkey day title and all students returned to campus for chores. Message from Boy’s Dorm: Dear families and friends, Happy Thanks Giving!