by Biodigestion Research Crew

Parents’ Weekend was a rush of excitement and confusion as the size of the campus expanded by nearly four times what it usually is. Parents, siblings, and friends were welcomed by a groups of girls on the upper deck of their dorm and clusters of boys at the end of the driveway, anxiously awaiting the arrival of familiar faces. Parents were met by students sprinting towards them, some students even tackled their parents, ending up as a hugging mass on the ground. This image exemplifies the feeling and spirit around campus during Parents’ Weekend as many were reunited with expected and even some unexpected visitors.

Once the initial hugging and crying frenzy subsided, Island School students got down to business doing homework and preparing for presentations as the night came to an end. The next day, each research group gave a ten-minute presentation to teachers, parents and other Island School community members.  The Biodigestion team worked very hard to put together a presentation that would inform and inspire the community about the importance and magic of our research project.  Initially, our presentation was far too long, but as we worked on it the time was cut down significantly and we reached the ten minute requirement.

As we waited in the boat house for other groups to finish, we were getting pretty nervous, so therefore we decided to play our favorite game: Ninja.  This involves a series of ninja poses where the goal is to slap the opponents hand in order to get them out.  After the battle, we settled down and focused on the task ahead.

We entered the Presentation room with a calm demeanor prepared to impress.  The slideshow was going smoothly and the parents were engaged, however, an unexpected power outage briefly stunned us.  Luckily, Arben was in the middle of presenting the results section and recovered beautifully.  Forcing the audience to use their imagination, he continued to present the graph sections.  The power returned quickly, allowing us to finish our presentation with grace.  During our question and answer session we realized the enthusiasm of our audience when they asked us a series of six intellectual questions, forcing us to think beyond our own project and consider other perspectives. As a whole, Parents’ Weekend was a success and we are proud of our team’s work this semester.

The oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) was once considered to be one of the most numerous large vertebrates on the planet. Yet ongoing exploitation of this species for it fins, for use in the Asian delicacy shark fin soup, has caused precipitous population declines in many parts of the world. This species has been especially hard-hit in the northwest and western central Atlantic Ocean, where it is now difficult to find them in significant numbers.  Despite the inherent difficulties in finding and studying large, relatively rare oceanic sharks, an international team of researchers successfully satellite-tagged a large number of these animals off Cat Island, The Bahamas, this month in order to track their movements to enable more effective conservation of this top ocean predator. Continue reading →