by Sam Jensen

Today we started the day off with some early morning yoga or waterpolo, depending on your choice. I chose yoga, a relaxing class taught by Brady in the presentation room. After the class, everyone felt relaxed, rejuvenated, and ready for the day. It was a Friday, the day we change caciques (leaders for the week), I had been a cacique for the previous week, and Brady invited the five of us to her apartment for a final breakfast as a group. We made omelet’s and coffee cake together, and wrote our passing on speech to the next student who we decide would make a great leader for the upcoming week. After that delicious treat of breakfast, we made our way to the community meeting. At these meetings we get together as a entire community and discuss things that will help benefit everyone as a whole. In this particular meeting, we did the cacique pass off and did a activity about different kinds of leaders, what kinds we personally are, and how we need a diversity of leaders in a group to be successful. We answered some questions, which put us in certain groups: the driver, the motivator, the annalist, and the relationship builder. We learned about the positive and negative aspects of each type of leader, and how without each type of leader a society can’t function. It was cool to see who else was in my leader group, and this knowledge helped me better understand the group dynamic. After the community meeting, we broke off into our research groups for a 2-hour research class. I am in the lobster displacement group. In this class period, we had a discussion about the scientific paper we were assigned to read, we had a short pop quiz, and we went to the wet lab to begin setting up our experiment. Lunch followed research, and human ecology followed lunch. In this class, we talked about different types of plants around us, and how they help out the eco-system. We then went around and tested different water sources around campus: the well, the cistern, and the ocean. We tested salinity, ph, temperature, and conductivity. It was interesting to see what levels of what was in the water we were drinking. We then broke off into groups of 3 and had one hour to make a water filter. We searched the school for materials. We went to the beach, the resource center, the farm, and around all the classrooms. We found bits and pieces of things to use, and we found that natural materials seemed to work better. After this, we tested the levels in our water and compared it to the other water we tested. After this class, we had exploration time. Most of us biked to sunset beach, a beautiful beach about a mile away. It was a perfect way to relax and hang out with our friends. Everyone met again at dinner circle, had dinner together, and then went to our night class. We don’t have night classes every night, but tonight ours was about the use of plastic and how it can affect so many natural ecosystems and animals. It was eye-opening and inspirational. Those two words can represent more than the night class though, it can represent our entire Island School experiences we’ve had in just these short 4 weeks.

by Sophie Ochs

Hi everybody! I’m so happy to be back and writing to you all about the events of yesterday! To start the day off, the groups of run track and swim track all got ready to push themselves. Whether that was by swimming against the current in the cut or running almost five miles, both teams had a great time and were really happy to see how hard they could push themselves. After chores and personal space, the community gathered or a delicious breakfast. All the students said this was by far their favorite meal with French toast, sausage and fruit! It was so good! Smelled exactly like “mom’s cooking.” After breakfast, the students brought their full bellies down to their first class followed by lunch and Community Outreach. I know for a fact that this is some of the student’s favorite activities because it not only lets you reach out to a new culture, but it also allows you to make a new friend along the way. Heading back to the campus the students sang songs and played games in the boiling and jam-packed vans as they became more and more excited for the big World Cup Soccer Tournament. During the world cup, advisories group up together and play pick up games of soccer all leading to a final match between the two teams India and Greece! While Greece scored numerous times, had totally awesome celebration moves and played hard, the winner of the World Cup was India. As the team threw curry up into the air, the students cheered and hugged as the teams walked off the field. Three showers later, the team India still smells like a traditional Indian dish. The bonding time really brought us closer together and everyone was so happy afterwards to have gotten the time to cheer on friends with some friendly competition. We cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings but we will definitely share it with you all.

by Sophie Ochs

Yesterday was a huge day for us. While everyone was enjoying their sleep in, a few of us went free diving with Maxey, Jason, Ashley, and Aaron where they had the opportunity to glide through a 35-foot deep reef tunnel with life surrounding it. The experience was so amazing and it was like no other. Then, the students began classes and research. Some of the students went diving, snorkeling and were able to catch and study some really cool species. Today the students are eager to dive and to go out with Lee and explore some survival techniques, such as building a filter, using all recycled and environmental objects. Then the team will hop on the bus and get ready to go out and help the community with our Deep Creek Middle school buddies! It is so fun working with the community and working with the buddies has really opened most of us up to getting out of our comfort zones. We are all so happy to be able to go there and see how thankful the community is to have us help out. The students also really enjoy getting to know someone from a different culture while learning about it in histories and literature class. These experiences not only help us during our Community Outreach time, but during our settlement days where we travel to Deep Creek to interview and observe the people there as well as the interactions between the population and the land. This allows us to be our own versions of independent anthropologists and really explore the land. We cannot wait to do it again this week and really show our enthusiasm and share our culture with the community!

Hello All, my name is Sophie and I will be writing this day’s blog. Yesterday was a big day for the students here at The Island School. In the morning we all gathered up at the flagpole for our daily circle where we sing the national anthem. Then both the students and faculty began to make their way down to the dock for our first Run-Swim! All along the way each student was cheering each other on and doing their best to push themselves and really challenge their bodies. It was so exciting seeing every student and faculty member at the end of the race lined up, encouraging one another as they reached the flagpole. Right after chores and breakfast, the IS members headed over to the boathouse to share meaningful “snapshots” of our life that lead us to where we are now. Hearing everyone in the group open up and talk about their past was something that I never thought would happen within the first three weeks. I already feel so close to everyone and so comfortable talking to them about what I am thinking and what my ideas are. This applies to everyone in research too. This is an opportunity to try new things and really connect with others. The research groups are all working really hard to test out new ideas and help the scientists further develop their theories and their studies. During the student’s class time, some were able to go diving during marine ecology and really had a blast! They saw many different types of algae, fish and coral. Peter lead the group to go exploring and “adopt a coral reef” to study throughout the semester. Later that day the students were given exploration time where a few went out to explore the water towers. When we returned for dinner circle, we had our new group leaders update us on what the plan of the night was and what the quote of the day was. Then the evening settled off and we had a histories night class that was presented to us by our teachers Brady and Emma. The purpose of the night class was to prepare us for Settlement day today and what to do when visiting a different community. We are all so excited and nervous to have our first settlement day and cannot wait to see what it will bring us! We will continue with the updates!