Category Archives: Uncategorized

Girl’s Empowerment Project Looking for Your Involvement

Jayneka Brown, a ninth grade student at the Deep Creek Middle School has witnessed first hand the effects of teenage pregnancy. She believes that this is a problem, preventable by education. For this reason Jayneka decided to propose a girl’s empowerment project in the middle school as well as the community in which she lives. The 2011 Girl’s Empowerment Project was joined by a small group of Island School students at the start of the semester. All of these individuals have contributed to the planning of an event which will be held on Saturday, May 14th. Teenage girls from Deep Creek Middle School as well as the communities of Southern Eleutheraare invited to attend this event Continue reading

First Seining Experience with the Flats team

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As we walked past the death rock, Dave Philipp (advisory board member) spotted a school of bonefish. We quickly ran back to the boat with much excitement, our hearts pounding in our ears, and grabbed the seine net to began encircling the oncoming fish slowly and carefully  As we enclosed the entire school of over 200 bonefish they erupted in a frenzy of silver flashes and tails splashing. We quickly had to grab each bonefish with either a dip-net or our bare hands and transfer them into a holding net. Continue reading

Shark Research Program Ventures to Half Moon Cay

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On Wednesday, April 20th the Shark Team started a long day a reconnaissance fieldwork by boarding a 5:00 am ferry from Davis Harbor, Eleuthera, heading to Half Moon Cay.  The objectives of this first time visit were to identify ideal habitats for juvenile lemon sharks, and to sample the shark population by inserting small, conventional “spaghetti” tags just below their dorsal fin and taking DNA samples.  Continue reading

May Day at Island School

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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3 Down Island Moments with K1

Down Island Trips are not only an important Island School tradition, but they are one of the most engaging and exciting place-based educational opportunities available to our students.  As a staff member, DIT’s are one of my favorite opportunities, too.  I get to see students in new contexts, having new experiences, and negotiating new ideas (sometimes uncomfortable and difficult). This semester, in a walk-on basketball game with some locals on Harbour Island, a student was called “white boy” for the first time.  Students talked about being treated like tourists.  Individuals talked about how people would come up and easily identify them as Island School Students.  They felt like this label meant that they were not individuals, but standardized and stereotypical predictions of people.  They wrestled with the dangers of labels.  They thought about the virtues of tourism.  They even faced the fear of a first thing in the morning 3o foot cliff jump.  What a way to start the day!  I could feel paradigms shifting under my feet.

So, to demonstrate what a Down Island Trip really means, I bring you three moments that illustrate the heart of The Island School’s Down Island experience:

Staged at the Governor’s Harbour library, this is an excerpt from final Harkness-style discussion about what tourism means to Eleuthera.

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Step Aside Joe, Evan the Plumber is Here!

Throughout my Island School experience, I’ve had a lot of firsts. My first night-time scuba dive, my first short haircut… but perhaps one of the firsts that I honestly never anticipated to experience here was my training as a quasi-plumber expert! Biodigestion is a process that has many useful benefits that range from the reduction of waste materials to the production of renewable energy- none of it would be conceivably possible, however, without proper plumbing and piping. So I sat down with Sam, our biodigestion advisor, where he taught me the ins-and-outs of how to properly clean and seal two pipes to activate a pressurized valve. Continue reading

A fish filled poem…

By:  the aquaculture research class; Aldis, Emma, Izza, Marco, Bronte and Elizabeth

This semester’s research is focusing on lowering the percentage of fishmeal that is included in aquaculture fish food. This is a poem describing what we do each week with the aquaculture research class. Continue reading

Cacique Update April 24, 2011

by Caciques Caroline V. and Lindsey

Today, we went to Princess Keys and experienced our first taste of returning home to an environment that is not as aware or concerned with sustainability as The Island School is. As we stood in the heat listening to our tour guide, many of us were shocked by what we heard. Because of all we’ve learned here, we were interested to know if they were environmentally friendly. It turns out that our tour guide didn’t even know half the answers to the questions we were asking her. A lot of us starting thinking about returning home and what it was going to be like and how we could help to make a difference. But we didn’t have too much time to ponder about home because of our upcoming 8-day kayak andDownIslandadventures that were soon to come. Feeling intense anticipation, we are all very excited about our trips and can’t wait to embark on our upcoming journeys.