As the parents of our spring 2011 students settle back into homes and offices today, we wanted to share these videos once again to hopefully put a smile on your face this Monday morning…

The Deep Creek Middle School (DCMS) is an independent school for Bahamian students in grades seven through nine located on the southern end of the island of Eleuthera. DCMS, a grantee of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation, offers an experiential approach to the Bahamian curriculum for students in South Eleuthera.

DCMS was founded in September 2001 with the goal of increasing access to educational resources for people of South Eleuthera. DCMS works closely with The Island School and the Cape Eleuthera Institute to offer students and staff a unique experience that connects them more intimately with their environment and on-going efforts for sustainable development and environmental stewardship in South Eleuthera.

The cost of education for a DCMS student for one year is $8,500.  Families of students contribute up to $1,500 per year; the rest of the tuition is financed by generous individuals or foundations who choose to sponsor a student during their time at DCMS through the Cape Eleuthera Foundation.

Over the past several years, DCMS has had 16 alumni attend boarding school in the United States. Five of the current grade nine students will travel to the US this fall to study at The Lawrenceville School (NJ), Wilbraham and Monson Academy (MA), Lawrence Academy (MA), The Pennington School (NJ), and Perkioman (PA). These students will receive in total almost $1,000,000 in scholarship and aid packages over their four year high school studies.

Students at The Island School work with the students of Deep Creek Middle School on community outreach projects each semester. The partnership offers Island School students the opportunity to serve as mentors to DCMS students and to develop strong bonds with local families. This semester the students are working together on community initiatives developed by grade 9 students at DCMS, ranging from raising awareness for the need for better medical care on Eleuthera to developing a speaker series directed at young men on Eleuthera to reduce school drop-out rates.

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George Giannos (F10) returned to his sending school, The Lawrenceville
School, and realized they were missing a big opportunity to grow food on
campus.  After his experience in the Aquaponics research group, he brought
his skills back to NJ and developed an independent study to retro fit a
greenhouse on campus for an aquaponics systems. Continue reading →

We hope you are gettting excited to join us October 7th-9th, 2011 for the first official on-island reunion.  This reunion is for alumni, parents, and former faculty. Check out the important details and schedule below, then click here to RSVP.

Note: An attendee under the age of 18 MUST be accompanied by his or her parent.  An alumnus MAY NOT have another alum’s parent act as their guardian.  Continue reading →

Yesterday May 1st, Island School students and faculty staged the very first (as far as we know…) maypole dance in celebration of May Day. Our daily evening circle was energized by a half century old ritual of celebrating the seasonal bloom of spring.  We wove and danced around our flag pole, remembering just a few months ago when short days darkened evening circle. Now, as spring is upon us, the bright colors of ribbon shown against the light blue evening skies. 

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Experiential education is catching on here in Eleuthera. Last week BREEF (Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation) held a teachers workshop in Savannah Sound. Local teachers came from far and wide to take part in the one day coral reef training workshop. Educators gained a plethora of lesson plans to connect students to the coral reefs in their surrounding environments. Those attending the workshop participated in a number of skills based learning techniques such as, games, reef mapping and a field trip. Continue reading →

We are proud to announce that we have won the Three-Minute Shower Challenge put forth by The Body Shop and HerCampus.com!  Thank you to all that watched our video.  We’re confident Island School-style navy showers will continue to spread across the globe!

Spring 2011 will celebrate two legacy days this spring, where they spend the entire day working on the campus and leaving their mark.  In the past, legacy projects have included earth bagging to build the biodiesel shed, creating a compostable toilet, building stalls for outdoor showers, creating a trellis at the boys dorm to grow delicious passion fruit, and a LOT of landscaping.  Many of our older alumni would be shocked to visit campus today and see how lush and green it is, compared to the white “parking lot” it used to be.  One of the greatest things about legacy day is that students really begin to appreciate the hard work that our facilities team does every day.  The first legacy day of this spring took place on Wednesday; check out the hard work of our Spring 2011 students continuing to make our campus beautiful!

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Royal DSM N.V. presented The Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) with a cheque for $70,000 to further research for offshore aquaculture. DSM and CEI are collaborating to demonstrate that raising fish in an offshore cage within The Bahamas and other warm-water locales is possible and can be done with assured success and in a sustainable manner. This support demonstrates DSM’s commitment to sustainability and feeding the world’s poplulation.

DSM Dyneema and CEI have been working in partnership since 2009 to find improved predation controls for warm-water aquaculture. Although netting with Dyneema® is already being used, all parties felt the need to improve existing solutions. These funds, in conjunction with in-kind donations from NET Systems, Inc. of Bainbridge Island, WA are being used to design and test new ultra abrasion resistant netting materials that will be used to manufacture enhanced shark-resistant fish cages. This is the first corporate sponsorship CEI has received. CEI promotes conservation of tropical and coastal ecosystems throughout The Bahamas and greater Caribbean by facilitating research, supporting education of all levels, and promoting outreach to enhance the conservation awareness of local communities. Continue reading →

Reel Fishy Jobs visited CEI to film an episode last fall– check out the video here!