by Caciques Ellie and Austin

Happy Earth Day! Our very own Lissa Eidelman greeted us at dinner circle with an excerpt from President Obama’s Earth Day speech. Being so disconnected from the outside world, it was pleasing to hear that others are also putting effort into a greener, more sustainable world. Obama talked about how our world needs to use less energy and conserve more. The little efforts are what count. Here at The Island School, we try to do this by turning off the lights whenever we leave a room. We also try to be as sustainable as possible when eating our food. We buy as locally as we can to reduce the carbon footprint, and in many cases, we grow our own food.  Before I came to The Island School, I never considered the aspect of food in sustainability. I never knew that buying so locally and organically could make such a big difference!

While half of the students are on the 8-day kayak trip, we continued our hard work in classes of the academic week. Everyone began their day with an exhilarating class of literature, which discussed poetic writing and structure, especially that of Omeros. Then we moved on to a 2-hour block of art. This time was devoted to building our final projects. After a scrumptious pizza lunch, we headed off to 4 ½ hours of research. The Lionfish Team determined the speed of the currents around Rock Sound. The Aquaponics Team continued their process of comparing the productivity of lettuce grown in an aquaponics bed versus lettuce grown in the Bahamian soil. We counted the leaf number and measured the height for approximately 500 plants today. What a workout! The Island School community then concluded their day with a fish and hot-cross-buns meal, a traditional Bahamian Good Friday meal.