Daily Update

Daily Update March 12, 2012

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Today, the Island School Community awaits the beginning of classes.  Both faculty and students wait to see how they can work together to learn.  Over the weekend, we jumped into the semester from High Rock and held a Commencement from Orientation ceremony, where we all pledged to work form a dynamic and tightly knit community.  On Sunday, the students, and faculty, enjoyed their first day off.  Adventures ranged from snorkeling and diving, to exploring, to enjoying the coffee shop, and getting rest on the beach.  This morning, we will enjoy our first timed Run/Swim, as well as our first Math and Human Ecology classes.  The anticipation is strong, but the community is excited for their more regular schedule.  Though the first day is classes is normally a thing of dread, the community is eager and happy to begin their academic journey.

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Daily Updates from Eric Witte

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Eric Witte in Action!

Now that the semester course has transitioned out of the orientation period, we begin a more rhythmic academic schedule. For the rest of the semester, look for Daily Updates about the Island School experience. Every two weeks a different student will be in charge of Daily Updates and he or she will use chore time to write and publish these. Look for updates all “chore days” including Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. For the next two weeks, student Eric Witte will be giving you his personal, thoughtful, detailed descriptions of the Island School Journey. First, enjoy a thoughtful reflection he wrote last week about his shifting perspective. Later today, look for his very first Daily Update…

Erik Witte: Arriving at the Island School has pushed me to make a lot of changes in my habits.  Continue reading →

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Sustainability in Exile

Island School Marine Ecology teacher, Peter Zdrojewski, has been spreading the news of his friend and grad school advisor – Dr. Jonathan Scherch – who has recently put together a documentary “Sustainability in Exile.” The documentary is focused on his work with Tibetan refugees and their movement away from monoculture, corporate cash cropping and back to sustainable agriculture/permaculture. You can check out a preview of the movie here.

The film is part of the iPic Redmond Film Festival, focused on earth preservation, so if you enjoy the clip and would like to vote for it, please go to  http://www.facebook.com/IPicRedmond?sk=app_175392659238041

Jonathan’s work has been inspiring and provides a much needed collaboration with an already distressed community. Hope you enjoy!

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More from Week Two

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By: Natalie, Annie, Tai, Kyle T, Lucy, Ann-Marie, Sterling, Greg: It may seem rough to leave behind cell-phones, telephone, and Internet, but we have happily replaced these “tings” with place-based learning. This week in math class, we took a boat out to the sand bar to examine the ooids that make up the island’s foundation. Scientists flock from all over the world to study these geological wonders of theBahamas. We also calculated the distance to the horizon from our location. Yesterday we took our first breaths under-water for SCUBA certification, which is part of our Marine Ecology class. We will use this still to learn about the different ecosystems that surround us. We’re excited to start our research projects this week, which range from mangroves to lemon sharks. Best of all, on Friday night we made new friends around a bonfire rather than on Facebook. Now how many high school students can say all of that?

Kyle Forness: Today as I sat under the gazebo free-writing with Felix I thought of how well the gazebo represented The Island School and its ideals. Starting from the top down, the thatched roof made of dried indigenous leaves stood for how The Island School is conscious and tries to incorporate the culture of The Bahamas into our schooling as well as a sheltered safe place for us to grow and learn. Continue reading →

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Perspectives from Week Two

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Sometimes at Island School, things don’t always go as planned. So, when the weather isn’t right for SCUBA week, find other worthwhile ways for students to spend their time, like clearing the path out to Deals Beach, or sitting down to do some extra-blogging. Enjoy these reflections written by K3 and K4 in their downtime between dives…

Will Gold: Last Saturday the whole Island school headed into Deep Creek, which is the closest town for a cook out and a softball game with the local people.  When we arrived they had their grill up and running and were cooking steak, chicken and fish. I had the fish just to see what it was like. It was given to me with the head and everything still on it so it looked pretty gross but when you picked the meat and skin off they were delicious! We went and walked around town after that which was pretty small but interesting.

When we got back the softball game was already underway.  There was a mix of people playing in the outfield of locals mostly kids about my age and people I recognized from the Island School.  Little local kids were running around playing fun games with some of the girls from school, teaching each other some songs and rhythms.  There was a really strong sense of community as every one was laughing and talking smack.  It felt really good to be apart of because it reminded me of home. I joined right away and started in the out field somewhere between second and third. Continue reading →

Events

Women Working for Oceans

Kirsten Dawson (IS Parent F04, F06, F08), is part of a newly formed organization, Women Working for Oceans or W20. The organization was started by a group of women near the Boston area who are concerned about the health of the planet’s oceans and want to do something about it. The mission of W2O is to inform individuals about the challenges facing oceans and inspire action to ensure a healthy, sustainable blue planet for tomorrow. W20 works in partnership with the New England Aquarium, a global leader in marine education and conservation.

Having had several successful events last spring and fall, W2O is gearing up for speaker Dianna Cohen of the Plastics Pollution Coalition to address the serious problem of plastics polluting the oceans. Please see the below Save the Date to their April 10th event. All are welcome and encouraged to attend!

Save the Date – April 10

For more information about W20, please visit their website: www.womenworkingforoceans.org, or visit them on Facebook. Feel free to contact Kirsten directly at kirsten.m.dawson@gmail.com. Please come join them, get involved, and help build a wave of action for change to help protect our oceans.

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Student Update March 2, 2012

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by Cacique Sterling Wright

Today was the first day of kayak/scuba week. After the mad rush on Saturday to see which students were in what kayak group and what research project they been assigned to, the students are getting slowly split into different groups. Us students are figuring out that we’re at a school not on vacation, and we can’t just do whatever we want. The students were split into four groups (K1, K2, K3, K4), K1 and K2 left on their first down island kayak trip, which will be for three days.  While K3-4 are split into groups for SCUBA diving instruction for the next few days.  Continue reading →

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Final Reflections…

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Tai Massimilian: I squinted, wrapping my arms around my shivering body. This bathing suit is pinching my back and feels totally unnatural. And I’m pretty sure my skin is already burning. Yes. Yes it is. This was day one of the Island School Experience, and I was already way out of my comfort zone. By about 7 AM, I had peeled myself out of bed from a near comatose sleep, yanked on a bathing suit for the first time since last August, spit in a snorkeling mask, and braved the freezing waters for a wreck snorkel. The ocean was saltier than I remembered and burned the back of my tongue. I could feel my pale skin frying in the sunlight, and frankly, I was too exhausted for this. Continue reading →

Educational Programs

Gap Year Program Update #5

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Hello World,

This is Jonathan Karlson coming to you from the Cape Eleuthera Institute on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. It’s the end of week six for the GAP semester and CEI has officially become our second home! The past week has been eventful to say the least. Amidst the exasperating work on our independent student projects (ISPs), long afternoons spent working on rescue SCUBA knowledge reviews, and fearless research for our Human Ecology paper, the Gap Year students took a well-deserved hiatus from the rigorous schedule that is CEI and went for a five-day kayak and camping trip down the eastern side of the Cape.

Before departing, we packed heavily on Sunday afternoon, splitting into teams of three to gather both food (such as cheese, tortillas, pancake mix, GORP, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and granola) and gear (such as tents, sleeping bags, pads, crazy creeks, dromedaries for water, tarps, paddles, PFDs, spray skirts, and whistles). Once the gear was nicely stowed in the boathouse for our departure the following morning, we retired to our dorms to pack personal gear and prepare mentally for a rough, yet relaxing next couple of days (or so we thought…).

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