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Alumni, Uncategorized

Alumni CONCHtribution Campaign 2010 Starts Today!

It’s my favorite time of year again; pumpkins, fall foliage, warm sweaters and…..CONCHtribution! Today is the first day of the 2010 Alumni CONCHtribution Campaign, an annual giving campaign for Island School alumni to show their support by donating to the Cape Eleuthera Foundation’s annual fund.  Last year we raised over $17,000 with over 30% participation in the two months of the campaign, and we’ve set our goals even higher this year.

There are plenty of reasons to CONCHtribute in 2010.  As always, the alumni classes are competing for the highest participation rate, with the winning class getting a plaque placed on the Golden Conch, which hangs prominently in The Island School dining hall.  Secondly, this year the first $5,000 of the campaign will go toward supporting the journey of one Deep Creek Middle School student during the 2010-2011 school year.  And finally, donors from any class whose participation rate surpasses 60% will receive a FREE Island School alumni t-shirt, featuring the logo to the right.

Need I say more?  Clearly now is the best time to go to the CONCHtribution page and donate!  Thank you for your continued support of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation!

Uncategorized

How to Love Your Dirt

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At the Island School we have a saying: “there’s no such thing as trash, just resources in the wrong place.” This mantra is the guiding force behind our efforts to turn glass bottles into drinking vessels, vegetable oil into biodiesel, and old tires into a walking bridge. It is the reason why we compost; the reason why we take banana peels and pig manure and shredded cardboard and turn this “trash” into productive soil for our farm. The drive towards a more sustainable campus means following the model of a natural ecosystem, in other words, a system that generates no waste. Materials that might otherwise go into a landfill retain their productive capacity. But what about the school’s less tangible byproducts? In an intensely inward-looking and self-reliant community such as ours, social tension is bound to arise. How can disagreements, frustrations, and conflict be among the “resources in the wrong place?”

 

The answer starts at Community Meeting, a weekly forum where Island School students and faculty come together for collective problem-solving, goal setting, and appreciations. It was at a recent meeting—during a discussion of hot issues like dish crew, sorting recyclables, and what happened to all the socks Continue reading →

Cacique Update, Uncategorized

Cacique Update October 30, 2010

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“Boo!”

By Caciques Perry Leavitt and Liam Donovan

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Although it is not quite Halloween, The Island School celebrated the amazing holiday today. Tonight was our haunted house. We decorated the campus so that we could scare all of the Deep Creek Middle School students. The boathouse was haunted by four dead scuba divers. Liam was lying face down in the freshwater dunk tank ready scare all of the children. The dinning hall deck was a Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 29, 2010

“Ghost Town”

by Caciques Chris Pibl and Catharine Pirie

Campus has been a ghost town for the past few days. While some groups left for 8 day kayak, others were leaving for Down Island Trip, leaving the teachers alone on campus. K2 returned from their kayak trip yesterday so they were the only ones on campus until they were joined later on in the day with the arrival of K1 and K4 from their Down Island Trip. Last night, we almost had a full community, with the exception of K3, and we are sad to see K4 leave again for their kayak trip. K1 and K2 have been busy preparing for their academic week.

Having just returned from their kayak, k2 has many stories to tell about kayak. Continue reading →

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Godspeed K3!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKox1IR419s

Halfway through the eight day kayak trip and down island trip rotation, the K3 kayak group departed this morning from Cow Point, Eleuthera. They will be spending four days on the water before embarking on a two-day solo experience. The K1 group finished their trip on Monday and headed down island this morning along with the K4 group. Kayakers in the K2 group were resupplied on Monday and will return to The Island School on Thursday evening.

Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 25, 2010

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“K1 Returns!”

By Caciques Clay Bales and Aly Boyce

Today started off with much anticipation for our K1 kayak group returning.  We had classes all morning and a two-hour block for our human ecology presentations. We all enjoyed learning about bio-diesel, compost, bees and conscious consumerism, as the presentations were very interesting and informative. We had art all afternoon to finish our Unit 3 projects, which we will put in the parents weekend art gallery.  Those who finished early had an optional Querencia time, to prepare us for the 48-hours of solo ahead. At circle Clay Bales, Will Overman and Augie Cummings performed the song “I and Love and You” by the Avett Brothers. Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 24, 2010

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By Caciques Sarah Sasek and George Giannos

This morning’s exercise was a salsa class on top of the dining hall deck. Do not be mistaken—it was exercise.  The rising sun’s rays illuminated the clouds lining them with a soft pink, as twenty-four awkward students, plus faculty, shook their hips and stumbled upon their feet. Perhaps a few exceptions were the dance instructors Aubrey and Matt, along with some other students and faculty who are blessed with rhythm, unlike me.

Shortly afterwards, we departed on the bus for Princess Cays. Our objective for today: to observe tourism and to determine whether or not we consider ourselves tourists. As we drove up a hill we could see over the trees and caught a glimpse of the ocean with a massive ship sitting on its horizon. It seemed out of place. Here, the tourists relax for a day before returning to sea. Abruptly, I realized just how removed from American society I have been for nearly two months, but what shocked me more was realizing just how removed from Bahamian society the tourists were, despite being in The Bahamas. Continue reading →

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Satellite tag pops off!

 

The Bluntnose sixgill about to have a satellite tag attached to it (photo- Lance Jordan)

 

 

The deep water shark team is excited to announce that the first of 3 satellite tags has popped off a Bluntnose sixgill shark! The shark was tagged with an X-tag supplied by Lucy Howie-Jordan of Microwave Telemetry Inc. on September 13th 2010 and set to record the shark’s movements for 30 days. The tag popped off, as programmed, on October 14th 2010. Once reaching the surface the tag began to slowly transmit the stored location, depth and temperature data and we are anticipating full recovery of the data. It’s exciting to see that the shark was tagged just off Cape Eleuthera and popped off at the Southern tip of Eleuthera just offshore from Lighthouse beach! On the image below you can see the track that the floating satellite tag took via surface currents. We hope it continues to Continue reading →

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Research? In the middle of the night?!

Aly driving out to the survey site at sunset

This week has been an eventful week for the Deep Water Sharks team. We said goodbye to three members of our team while they went off on their kayak trip. However we still have been working hard, out surveying two times this week, one of which was late Friday night. We stayed up as late as we ever have this semester and, as teenagers who are busy and need our sleep, there were some yawns.

Even so we had an awesome time. Aly went to set the survey with Annabelle and Sean, then Sean and Aubrey joined to retrieve the survey at 11pm. Though we have only caught two  sharks this week, they are two types of sharks that we are looking for to conduct further research.

Aubrey recording data and getting tagging and DNA tools ready

We are focusing on the Gulper and the Taiwan Gulper. Friday afternoon we caught a Gulper, but unfortunately we were not able to put a satellite tag on it to track its movements. Friday night, however, we caught the Taiwan Gulper, which is the larger of the two sharks and this one was 152 centimeters long. We took blood, a DNA sample, and placed a satellite tag on the shark.

Aubrey recording data and Aly stuffing 1100m of line without tangling it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tag will track the shark for 30 days then pop off and transmit all the data it has stored on the sharks movements to a satellite. Currently we are working on our final presentations/scientific papers. Individually we wrote our introductions, but now in our academic rotations for kayak, the three of us are working as a team on our methods section here on campus.

Clay, Aly and Aubrey

Aly measuring up the shark (Squalus inflatabulis)