15 Year T-Shirts on Sale Now!
The Island School is celebrating its 15 year anniversary this year and a few weeks ago, we asked for your help in choosing the design for our commemorative 15 year celebration t-shirts. Thanks to your votes, and collaboration with Fall 1999 alumni Thatcher Spring and Barrett Summerlin, the t-shirts are now available for purchase online!
The t-shirts are being sold through Thatcher and Barrett’s startup, GearLaunch, which lets individuals and organizations design and sell custom apparel to their audiences with no upfront costs or distribution challenges. The shirts are from Recover Brands, the same company that prints and distributes our uniform t-shirts. All of their apparel is created from 100% recycled materials.
The shirts are only being sold for one month so act fast and help us celebrate 15 years of The Island School by rocking one of these limited edition t-shirts!
Breathing Underwater, Ghost Stories, and other Adventures
I was in K3 this week, meaning that on last Friday I began my 3 days of Scuba training and on Monday I left for my 3 day kayak trip. The first day of Scuba was tough, we practiced basic skills in girl’s dorm cut and tried unsuccessfully to avoid the hordes of jellies which live there.
The next couple days were much better, though, as we watched ourselves improve exponentially. We explored beautiful dive sites like Tunnel Rock and Something to Sea, saw barracudas, lionfish, and sharks, and mastered difficult skills like swimming without a mask underwater and breathing using your buddy’s alternate air source. Now we are proud and certified scuba divers and we can’t wait to keep seeing new sites and getting better.
After scuba my group set out on our 3 day kayak trip.
We paddled miles and miles and ended up getting as far away as the Rock Sound airport. The days were sunny and beautiful and my group didn’t even get that sunburned. We also took breaks during the day to snorkel and free dive some blue holes where we saw a 12 foot nurse shark, 40 inch barracuda, and too many sting rays to count. When we got to camp we enjoyed hanging around on the beach and at night we heard some great ghost stories around the campfire from Braden and Vienna.
Overall, it was a great trip and I can’t wait for the 8 day kayak later this semester.
by Jake Atwood
Making Friends, Making a Difference
Yesterday we all loaded up the four vans and headed over to Deep Creek Middle School to meet our buddies and learn about our community outreach projects. My buddy, Tallia, and I bonded over having the same birthday, July 18th.
We went around to three stations to play games and get to know our buddy a little more. The first station a character or thing was put on our back without us seeing and we had to figure it out.
At the second station we played drama games like the mirror game where we had to make slow movements so the other can follow.
The third station was where we all got a map of the others country and showed them where we live and talked about the different activities in our towns.
After going to all of the stations our buddies got into their groups and explained the service projects they came up with and were passionate about. Some of them were about stray dogs, child abuse, lack of food and cutting down the invasive Casaurina tree. Each ninth graders plans a project and gets the help of an eighth grader and a seventh grader.
After bonding with our buddies they had to get to advisory so the Island School students stood in a circle and went around saying what was the most special part of our time with our buddies. As hard as it was to leave we were excited to go on a trip to the beach!
By, Olivia Wigon
Alumni Spotlight: Charlotte Rand (F’01)!
Although it has been over 12 years since Charlotte Rand’s semester at The Island School, the Fall 2001 alumna’s current career path remains directly related to her experience on the Cape. After high school, Charlotte went to University of Colorado for her undergraduate degree and then got a Masters in Natural Resources from University of Connecticut. Afterwards, they hired her to start and run Natural Resources Conservation Academy, a program that gets young kids involved in environmental science, authentic research and land use planning in their own communities. NRCA is now in its third year of operation. The program is similar to The Island School in that their emphasis is on field-based experiential science learning. You can see some of the student projects here. Charlotte was recently accepted into an environmental law program so she will be leaving NRCA this coming summer. Congratulations, Charlotte!
SCUBA Week!
Hi Everyone!
My name is Catherine and I am a Spring 2014 student here at The Island School. I compiled this short video of SCUBA week and I hope you enjoy it!
Mitigating the Threats of Invasive Alien Species in the Insular Caribbean (MTIASIC) Project video competition
Island School communications assistant and IS alumnus Will Strathmann (F’08) created this video on the invasive species of lionfish for the Mitigating the Threats of Invasive Alien Species in the Insular Caribbean (MTIASIC) Project video competition. Please enjoy the video while we await results from the competition!
Our First Look at The Island School
Early in the morning we all said goodbye to our family, friends, and old way of thinking. Waving goodbye to our parents from security was something many found to be extremely hard. For several, this was the first time they would fly alone or be away from home. Luckily, most of us found other students on the planes and befriended each other with ease and excitement. Abby was lucky to make the flight since she caught it with only ten seconds to spare. Although some of us were a little awkward and nervous getting through the airport we all eventually made it here safe and sound with all of our bags. It took some peoples bags a few days to arrive, like our dear friend Gretta . When asking students about their arrivals the common theme was stressful, but everyone said it was 110% worth it and they are ecstatic to be here.
Now, we’re here! Arriving to the Island School has been an unreal experience. There’s been so much going on since we stepped off the plane. Everyone is so fun and friendly! It’s been quite hectic with orientation starting up as soon as we got here. The first night we arrived, we all gathered in the boathouse to hear the head of school, John Schatz, introduce The Island School and give us a glimpse into our 100 day semester. He told us that The Island School is a place where we shouldn’t have many expectations but to expect that it’s going to be an incredible experience. He said that one of his primary roles here as the head of school is to confuse us, which confused us. During his talk he also said that The Island School and its faculty are here to help change our perspective and that it’s going to be a mentally and physically challenging 100 days. It was nerve wracking to hear but exciting at the same time.
Every morning we’ve been getting up before 6:30am to meet for morning circle and do morning exercise. The first morning we snorkeled Boys Dorm beach and got our first marine ecology class. We saw and learned about sea urchins, starfish, brittlestars, sea cucumbers, a big hermit crab, a stingray, and a GIANT barracuda. After a busy first 24 hours we started an even more busy orientation getting introduced to classes, meeting our advisories, exploring around campus, hearing many rules and expectations, and preparing for SCUBA and Kayak Week.
One of the introductions was to the student update blog, which is what you’re reading right now! Every two weeks a new group of students will be responsible for writing blog posts and sharing stories from our experience on the student blog. We ended the introduction with an activity that asked us to write down three words that came to mind when reflecting on our journey here so far and three words that best described our first impressions of this place that would be used to create two word clouds. Check them out!
Written by, Abby Gordon, Tess Bialobrzeski, and Catherine Argyrople
Urban School Leaders Visit Island School
Earlier this week, a number of urban school leaders visited The Island School to get to know our campus, as well as brainstorm ways to provide this type of transformative experience for their students. Brad Zervas, current Executive Director of Boys Hope Girls Hope (BHGH), and past Executive Director of Boys’ Club of NYC, Malick Fall, Principal at BHGH, and David Banks, Founder and Director of Eagle Academy, who has started 5 public schools for boys in and around NYC and most recently in Newark, NJ, were all in attendance.
These leaders are focused on the critical challenge facing young men around the planet, many of whom are growing up without fathers. In collaboration with the International Boys’ Schools Coalition, The Island School is working to help develop a summer leadership expedition to bring young men from schools around the globe. Zervas recognized years ago that Island School place and philosophy helps forge leaders through authentic physical and emotional challenges. Mallik and David took the initiating plunge off High Rock and after their visit are strong believers that the Cape is a good place to launch this new initiative.
Spring 2014 Starts Here
The Spring 2014 students have arrive safe and sound! Check out their arrival video below.