By Lea L.

Ever since I was little, grocery shopping has been one of my favorite activities. Once a week, for just a few hours my dad and I would search the shelves at Boston’s finest supermarkets to find the best deals on pasta and chips, the ripest fruits and vegetables, the easiest junk food to hide from my mom, and of course the best flavors of ice cream. Grocery shopping didn’t just mean spending quality time with my dad, it also meant that I had the power to decide what my family ate that week. Naturally, I only picked out the most nutritious food Stop n’ Shop had to offer including Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, Gushers, Trix Yogurt, Pillsbury Cookie Dough, Sunbelt Granola Bars, Captain Crunch, and a personal favorite Hostess Ring-Dings.

Now as I sat on the floor of the Presentation Room watching Food Inc. I realized where my delicious and somewhat nutritious food was really coming from. Images of filthy chicken coops, cruel slaughterhouses, and giant fields of genetically modified seeds flashed Continue reading →

Justin Wedes – Teacher – The Island School

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves a riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold. -Archibald MacLeish, ‘The Image of Victory,’

What a unique vantage point we have on the world! Plop a red pin down at random on any old place in the (known) universe, and where are you? By modern estimates, you are likely to find yourself in the cold, dark hinterlands between radiant stars and their companion planets. The thought of finding a familiar substance like water- wet as it slides through our fingertips- in a place like that is absurd, right? To borrow from Gertrude Stein: there is no there there.

Or is there? Astronomers talk excitedly now about water emission spectra, the tell-tale signs of water vapor or ice deep in Continue reading →

“A Last Saturday Together”

October 16^th, 2010

By Caciques Hammy Wallace and Pheobe Fitz

Today was the day we’d all been waiting for: PSATs. We got our blood flowing and our bodies moving with a long morning exercise. As usual, run track went their separate ways to prepare for our last morning exercise all together for three weeks. Swimming against the current in Current Cut was hard work, which was later met with more “buddy runs” as we raced back to campus for our final preparations for PSATs. After breakfast with calculators and plenty of number 2 pencils in hand, we all sat down for our 2-hour assessment. Although they weren’t the real PSATs, they were even better because not only did we get our real scores, we got to go back over all of the questions we missed to focus on our areas of improvement. During the generous amount of exploration time we were given, many people used it as their last Querencia, time spent alone, to reflect on our completed 5-week academic stretch Continue reading →

“Bee-ing at Island School”

October 13, 2010

By Caciques Charlie Fichtner and Ellen Doughty

This morning we were treated to an eight o’clock sleep-in, followed by an energetic rush to the granola and yogurt. We began our day with an hour long class, prior to our two-hour class followed by lunch. After lunch, we continued with the remainder of our classes and a bit of exploration time, leading up to dinner.

For many, today was the beginning of our Human Ecology electives, marking a substantial milestone in our semester. Following four weeks of normal Human Ecology classes where we learned about our ecological footprints, environmental ideologies, food processing and consumption and consumerism, we began a new unit. Each one of us had the opportunity to choose our top two elective preferences from the following: Bees, Biodiesel, Compost, Conscious Consumerism or Water, and from there, were placed in a group. Within each elective, we will be able to benefit the future and present state of The Island School. For example, I was lucky enough to receive my first choice of Bees! Continue reading →

[slideshow]

By Chris Pibl and Jackson Rafter

The Red Lionfish is an invasive species in the Southern Atlantic, originally from the Indo-Pacific waters, and was first sighted in the Bahamas in 2006. In the Caribbean, the lionfish has no natural predators, and has been found to prey on many ecologically and economically important species. There have been up to 20 juvenile fish found in the stomach of 1 average sized lionfish! Lionfish have venomous spines which give it a feared reputation,  and thus, many local fisherman avoid these fish for harvesting and consumption.  However, we know that their meat is safe to eat and think they are actually quite a tasty fish!

In an attempt to bring awareness to the local community, the patch reef group gave a presentation on the lionfish during the Wemyss Bight homecoming. We demonstrated the proper way to handle and prepare Continue reading →