“A Semester of Learning”

by Caciques Catharine Pirie and George Giannos

Today was an emotional day on campus. Bundled up students slowly emerged from their dorm to prepare for a super clean of campus. With our final Demonstration of Learning performances looming over our heads it was hard to focus on the task at hand. A long day of DOL’s celebrated all the growth and reflection we have done throughout our time here. Tears were shed, laughs were shared, and emotions were heavy as the students walked from DOL to DOL experiencing what others have learned. Continue reading →

“Semester Debrief”

By Cacique Marianne Foss-Skiftesvik and Brandon Gell

Today was not necessarily a typical Sunday here at Island School. Instead of having a sleep in, we had an eight o’clock circle leading into a group breakfast. We had our usual Wednesday and Sunday morning breakfast of granola.  After granola breakfasts a week and an unbelievable amount of Nalgenes full of granola on kayak, many of us have either grown to love or hate it. Then at nine o clock, the majority of students were having their final meeting before being able to get the next certification for scuba: Advanced Open Water Certification. We have been working up to getting this for the majority of the semester and it was very exciting to finally reach that point. Then at ten o’clock, we had our second circle of the day transitioning our time into the sad task of packing. Continue reading →

“Our Final SCUBA Adventure”

By Caciques Pheobe Fitz and George Giannos

The community began the day with some frantic last minute studying for our Final Oral Assessments in research. FOA’s are different for each research project, but FOA’s help evaluate the students understanding of the scientific method. For example, the Patch Reef FOA was a prompt given to the students, one at a time, asking them to design an experiment on the effects of an invasive shrimp species to the eel grass beds in Massachusetts waters. While waiting for our individual turns to be assessed, we waited with our research groups and prepared for the Research Symposium tomorrow. 

Following FOA’s and a filling lunch, we embarked on our final SCUBA adventure. Continue reading →

By Caciques Aly Boyce and Chris Pibl

During lunch yesterday, the Island Students went to the Rock Sound Ocean Hole to experience the work of the Ocean Hole Human Ecology project. For this project, the ocean hole team raised awareness by making a sign to inform the public of the history, wildlife, and facts about the ocean hole. After watching their presentation, we ate lunch, jumped into the water and swam in the ocean hole. Later on, the local primary school students stopped by to listen to the dedication of the ocean hole and the ribbon cutting ceremony. We got to know the local primary students while doing arts and crafts with them. We painted conch shells together to decorate around the base of the sign at the ocean hole.  It was a great time for the community to join to see the inspiring work that we have done over the semester. For more on today, watch the following live update by Aly and Pibl:

Daisy Spencer and Tucker Beckett 

“Loving Island School”

There was something different about waking up this morning… after struggling to put the flag up, it soon came down only to be replaced with a pirate’s flag while fireworks were being set off making the loudest “pop”, “bang” noises you would ever hear. There was no way anyone was sleepy now. Yarrrrr, this morning was “pirate workout” where we all were privileged enough to see our teachers storm the flagpole dressed as pirates. Where else will you get to see that?

[slideshow]  Continue reading →

“Our Stomachs Full and Our Awareness Raised”

By Caciques Sarah Sasek and Scott Endzel

This afternoon, after a long morning of Research, students and faculty came together once again to work on our Final Human Ecology Projects. An air of excitement filled the campus as the projects that we are so passionate about are coming to a conclusion. After five hours of hard work Chamon, Dorothy, Meaghan, and Allegra Hyde were excited to share with us their project: One Local Meal. Their goal was to create an entire meal using only local ingredients and to share this meal with the community in a family-style dinner. Continue reading →

“The Last Weekly Schedule”

By Caciques Margaux Burnham and Hammy Wallace

Today was our last day of formal classes. By dinner time each student had completed their last Histories, Literature and Math classes. While it was sad to close that portion of our semester, in each class we reflected on our work and everyone felt proud of how much they had learned. Now we are all hard at work completing our Portfolios, which are a compilation of all the assignments we’ve done in the past three months. We have specific requirements to include for each class, so it’s quite a large undertaking. However, everyone has been putting a lot of hard work into coming up with a creative way to present their work. Continue reading →