http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxsgSN3nakU
The aquaculture team isolated this egg from our third brood of the month from the same pair of sharknose gobies. The two black lumps are the eyes, and the dark spot is the yolk sac. With a little agitation, we watched a goby hatch under a microscope in the CEI lab for the first time.
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In 2002, Island School students pioneered a program for their research project creating biodiesel out of waste cooking oil. Since then, our on campus plant has grown to not only feed our campus vehicles with biodiesel, but has become a model for The Bahamas. On Monday, Bahamas Waste opened up its own biodiesel facility, which will convert up to one million gallon of waste cooking oil to biodiesel each year. Geoff Walton, Jack Kenworthy, and Graham Siener of Cape Systems, a for-profit subsidiary of the Cape Eleuthera Island School, served as consultants during the planning and implementation of the plant. At the ribbon cutting ceremony Peter Andrews, chairman of Bahamas Waste, handed over a check for $0.25 to Chris Maxey, Bahamas Environmental Steward Scholar Garneisha Pinder and Deep Creek Middle School student Moesha Leary. This check serves as a promise that for every gallon of biodiesel produced, Bahamas Waste will donate 25 cents toward the BESS program and scholarships at DCMS.
Congratulations and THANK YOU to Bahamas Waste!
This past weekend Kalin Griffin, Cape Eleuthera Institute’s Human Resources Manager, and Cape Eleuthera Foundation board member Stephen Holowesko had the pleasure of greeting education reformer Geoffrey Canada at a US Embassy event in Nassau. Canada, who has been recognized by President Obama for his work in education reform, met with Bahamian leaders to shared insights from his work on closing the achievement gap in Harlem, New York through his organization Harlem Children’s Zone. The Island School and CEI have a strong relationship with Harlem Children Zone’s Promise Academy; for the past several summers, students from HCZ Promise Academy have visited our campus for educational programming. We are looking forward to continuing this relationship and hope that Mr. Canada will be able to make it to Cape Eleuthera to visit soon.
To read more about Geoffrey Canada’s visit to Nassau, you can find the US Embassy’s press release here.
With hundreds of ripe red fruits decorating the jujube trees and the orchard floor below, the Permaculture team has embarked on a mission to produce a year’s supply of jujube jam for The Island School kitchen. Making the jam in such large quantities involves a daylong invasion of the kitchen, which Tiff, Mooch, Sheryl and Rebecca just love! They do seem amused by the vast quantities of jujubes we haul in throughout the week, and offer helpful tips to perfect our jam-making skills.
So as we are sure is the case with most of you, you likely have jujubes lying around your house that you just don’t have a clue what to do with. Well, worry no more! Here you can find a recipe with pictures breaking down just how to make your very own jujube jam, also known as Jujube Butter. With the autumnal flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, the jam closely resembles apple butter and acts as a wonderful addition to breakfast in the morning. Continue reading
Island School was pleased to welcome several new faculty members over the past week. Read faculty bios here and make sure to visit the blog regularly to catch new episodes of “Meet the Faculty/Staff,” which is scheduled to premiere next week.
Not wanting to be overshadowed by the goats and gobies, The Island School’s resident ducks have added a dozen new faces to the farm this morning. The ducklings are enjoying their new home between the badelynge of females and the flock of chickens. At the moment of writing an ugly duckling has not been discovered in the brood.
Did anyone else learn a new word from this post?
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Since the beginning of the year, the Educational Programs team at Cape Eleuthera Institute has had the pleasure of hosting several fantastic college groups, including Carlton University, Williams College and Monmoth University. They focused on various research areas including marine surveys, flats ecology and farming practices on Eleuthera.
We have also had three high school groups visit.
The Maine School of Science and Mathematics from chilly northern Maine had a two week stay, focused intensely on lionfish and lemon shark research, with some forays into marine ecology, the mangroves and filleting and cooking delicious tilapia. The students and chaperones had a blast, and got to brush up on their research, analysis and presentation skills. We eventually managed to exhaust the group with a celebratory trip to Lighthouse beach on the last day of their visit, after two weeks of intense physical and mental activity. Continue reading
By: Marie Tarnowski
The aquaculture team at CEI has been trying to successfully breed sharknose gobies for over a year. On January 31st, we had our first clutch of eggs hatch! After adjusting their diet the broodstock pair have begun to spawn every 2 weeks. After the eggs are laid on the inside of a piece of PVC tubing, the male sharknose goby protects the nest for about a week. The eggs then hatch and are larvae for 45 days. Each clutch of eggs contains around 200 eggs and we hope to successfully rear 30 per clutch. Continue reading
With six new kids in the goat pen, ducklings on their way, and new seeds planted in the shade house, the CEI farm has been bustling with activity since the start of the New Year. On Sunday, January 9th Sunday and Eli were born (see picture below), followed a week later by Bonnie and Flapjack. This past Monday, January 17th Sonny became a mother as well, welcoming Moon and Shadow into the CEI goat family. With the increase in herd size from four to ten in a matter of eight days, there has been a lot of hype about the goats at the farm. They are now happily nursing and even the youngest and smallest of the kids has begun nibbling on the green leafy stuff their mothers prefer. How fast they grow!
The female ducks are sending a steady supply of eggs to the kitchen, and two are expecting ducklings in the coming weeks. Having scavenged through theshade house gardens, the male ducks are now contained in a pen of their own to protect future string bean plants. With the help of students from visiting programs, two new vertical gardens have been installed and are now lined with lettuce, grown in preparation for the upcoming Island School spring semester.
Papaya, passion fruit and noni fruits are all ripening in the orchard, and the jujubes are dropping from their tree’s thorny branches at an astonishing rate. Daily harvests last week yielded over 15 gallons of these little red fruits, which were then turned into a delicious Juju jam- a wonderful addition to breakfast each morning. Plans are now in the works to make a Jujube pie…
As we roll out of January and into February, new crops will be planted and old ones transplanted to refurbish and redesign the farm. Within a few weeks we should expect to see tomato, sorrel greens, basil, stevia, romaine lettuce, marigolds, dill and more all happily planted and growing strong.
