Max Porter of the Fall 2014 semester has been busy since returning home. He has joined a well-known and successful robotics team as the all-important operator of the robot and also earned his Eagle Scout award. Unfortunately, when Max arrived home, it was not to the perfect homecoming that some Alumni might hope for. Upon returning, he had to cope with the fact that his best friend since lower school had passed away while he was at the Island School. Eventually Max was able to work past that and move on to new pursuits. To start this process, he jumped into his Eagle Scout project. Before coming to The Island School, Max had already completed all of the necessary merit badges and paperwork so all that was left was for Max to do his final project. Max’s idea was to build a shed to store his town’s fold up hockey rink that was brought out every winter but had no place to be stored resulting in damage from exposure each year. Max himself designed the structure for this shed and then, with a team of fellow scouts, successfully built the shed for his town. After the completion of Max’s Eagle Scout project, he took a job at the Thayer School of Engineering as a machine shop assistant and TA. This position laid the groundwork for Max to become inspired to join his current robotics team. That same winter that Max joined robotics, he also joined a swim team and ended up qualifying for States. Recently, Max took a trip to Costa Rica with 20 other students to study the “local ecology and how it affects the economy in Costa Rica.” The group stayed with host families in a town called Monte Verde which is located near the rain forests. Together they learned all about coffee plantations and the food exports that the country produces. While in Costa Rica, Max received an e-mail notifying him of his acceptance into the Colorado School of Mines. Max has “decided to go there and will spend the next four years of my life in Golden Colorado.” Max plans on majoring in either aeronautical or automotive mechanical engineering during his time there.

Max got started in the Scouting program at a young age as a Cub Scout. He loved all of the building activities that were part of the program. In particular, Max enjoyed building pinewood derby cars, rockets, and planes that he and his troop would race. Every year, Max was proud to say that his Pinewood Derby car earned a spot on the victory podium at the end of the event. After getting his start in the Cub Scouts, Max moved up the ranks and found that he enjoyed camping and learning survival skills. The Scouts taught Max to “be just as comfortable sleeping in the woods as I would be sleeping in my bed.” Carrying forward his love of building things, Max got into robotics while he was in 8^th grade. He was having a bit of trouble finding an extra-curricular niche that felt ideal to him but decided that since he was into RC cars at the time that robotics might be a good fit. Originally, Max was a bit skeptical of the joining the robotics team because he “figured it would be a group of people with huge glasses staring intently at computers.” As it turns out, things could not have been further from that impression. Max describes his experience with robotics as a “50/50 mix of 25-35-year-old coaches and high school kids blasting rock music in a large shop. The adults were acting like kids and the kids were acting like adults. It was perfect.” 2012 was the year that Max joined up with robotics and the very next year in 2013 the team qualified for the world championship completion held in St. Louis. A little known fact is that more countries participate in this world championship than do in some Olympic games so this was a big deal for Max. In 2015, Max became the driver for his team’s robots and, again, they qualified for the world championship but unfortunately could not raise the necessary amount of funding to attend. That year however, Max’s team won a prestigious award because of the excellent design of their robot.

Max learned a few things while he attended The Island School, but he credits one thing as one of the more important lessons. He says that the “main thing that I learned at the Island School was how to take something I learned in one class and apply it to another. This taught me to apply skills from Boy Scouts to robotics and taught me to take what I learned in robotics and apply it to math class.” It made him a better learner overall and allowed him to make stronger connections throughout his coursework. This will serve him well when he transitions to the Colorado School of Mines. Once there, Max plans to join their robotics and Formula SAE teams. This will allow Max to combine his enthusiasm for robotics with a passion for cars. In the future, Max sees a bright future in engineering and is looking forward to any possibilities that come with that.

In closing, Max had a few shout outs that he wanted to share:

“I want to give a shout out to the “Harkness Crew” and in particular Jack Kimball. He was my fellow Boy Scout at the Island School and shared my passion for designing and engineering. He has a booklet of all of his ideas for life-changing inventions.”

Max, good luck in Colorado! We here at The Island School are excited to hear what you do or build next.

 

Cristin McDermott of the Spring 2002 Island School semester completed the Pittsburgh half marathon Sunday, May 1st alongside Ed, her father! Cristin credits The Island School for sparking her passion for running and her completion of today’s race saying “It started with you!”

 Cristin returned to Eleuthera after her semester to help run a teacher conference and interned as an Island School teacher before enrolling in medical school in Pittsburgh. She plans to complete her residency in pediatrics, adult psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry in June of 2017.

From all of us at The Island School, keep it up Cristin!! To all other Alumni, we would love to hear and share your stories of running, swimming, triathlons and other competitions and triumphs!

Recently, The Island School had the chance to catch up with Devin Gilmartin of the Fall 2014 semester. We discussed a range of topics from his time on island to his current project with Recover Brands where he developed a t-shirt made from 100% recycled materials in honor of the recent Paris Agreement, a revolutionary document crafted by the nations of the world at the United Nation’s COP 21 meeting in Paris last year which was signed by 177 countries on Earth day this year. Devin will be attending the London College of Fashion this fall with the goal of transforming the fashion industry into a paragon of sustainability. Below is a transcript of our interview that was simply too powerful to cut up into a standard article. 

Q:  Could you give an update on yourself and what you have been up to since returning home from your semester?

A:  Returning from The Island School was perhaps the only thing more surreal than the experience itself. It was a spark of energy that will last my lifetime. When you spend 100 days so emerged in every aspect of a place, it’s a lesson on how you should treat everything in life. No aspect of living at The Island School goes unconsidered. That’s been my approach since. Just trying to soak up as much as possible from every experience. It’s the best way to live, appreciating everything for what it is and why it is. I think that’s what happens when you’re pushed to what you think are limits in the 100 days there. There’s a system in place that allows you to thrive. The people and the resources are there and it’s up to you to decide how to use them.

I tried to really push my limits physically at The Island School. Taking on both the super swim and the half marathon and taking the forty-eight-hour solo experience to fast and feel what it would be like to live only on water for two days, I learned it’s mind over matter. You learn that very quickly on Eleuthera.

Carrying that over to post Island School life, it was running the Brooklyn Half Marathon in the spring of 2015 and then, in November, running the New York City Marathon.

Having had the opportunity to graduate high school a semester early, I am spending the second semester of my senior year of high school working at Milk Studios as a social media content curator. It’s an amazing job that I would say consists of what I would have been doing in math class anyway. It’s about curating images and inspiration and creatively presenting that in the most beautiful way possible to an audience.

The Island School was about realizing the potential people have to do things that can make a difference. The 100 days you spend there are about developing that realization within yourself, that you are capable of being that type of person. When the 101st day comes and you leave the island, that’s when the real Island School journey begins. The opportunity to apply what you learned to your life and have it make an impact on others. 

Q:  How did you get involved with Recover Brands and what inspired you to create the 2020 Vision t-shirt?

A:  A collaboration with Recover had been on my mind since I first heard about it. Having always been interested in fashion, it stuck out immediately to me as a brand to learn more about. I of course had this really intense relationship with the product before Chris even introduced me to Bill Johnston (President of Recover Brands). Wearing it every day from sun up until sun down, I learned how it felt, how the fabric performed and how it looked. It was our uniform and for everyone to feel like they were part of The Island School down to even what they were wearing, that it carried the same message of sustainability and mindfulness, it was powerful. I think that’s what really made this collaboration so natural.

When Bill and I first started speaking about a collaboration, it was a general conversation about how we could approach a partnership that would appeal to an audience that was currently outside of Recover’s reach. I felt like I had something to offer in that regard and so we bounced ideas around. That was early in the year. It was really a few weeks ago that the idea for 2020 Vision came into fruition. I follow climate change and environmental issues closely so the opportunity to release a collaboration on Earth Day and the day in which the Paris Agreement, the first ever universal climate agreement, was going to be signed, it was perfect. I proposed the idea to Bill and Chris, they approved immediately, and the designing began. The name 2020 Vision comes from the idea of a vision of the future coming to life with the Paris Agreement in place. It’s up to us to bring it into existence.

For the graphics, I collaborated with a very good friend of mine, Luis Lizarraga. He has a multidisciplinary approach to design and his Paris based studio, Studio LGLR, had the perfect aesthetic for what we were going for. With the time difference between New York and Paris, it was hundreds of emails and texts between the two of us in the past few weeks, just going over getting everything from the font to the colors right, that lead to the final decisions on the graphics.

The front of the shirt features eight recycling symbols, representing the eight plastic bottles it takes to make one Recover shirt as well as text reading 2020 Vision. The back of the shirt pays homage to the island of Eleuthera.

What really made 2020 Vision go from a simple t-shirt to what really became an art project, was the message behind the photoshoot we did. My good friend and photographer Davon Chandler photographed the shirts on Charlotte S. McKee who did a great job portraying the attitude of the collaboration.

I also added a few textile pieces I wove using Saori, a Japanese weaving technique. The three pieces feature recycled fabric scraps and even cut up metrocards as an ode to a place I get so much inspiration from, that being the subway and the people I see on it.

The set of the photo shoot really put the finishing touches on the project. It was a juxtaposition of nature and pollution, using recycled water bottles as vases for flowers. It’s a subtle detail but perfect for pushing the idea of reintroducing one thing as something completely different, presenting up-cycling as a lifestyle.

Q:  How long have you been interested in what the UN is attempting to do in the fight against climate change? 

A:  Climate change has become this topic that people enjoy debating but at this point, it’s no longer a debate. Its time to come to terms with the fact we are facing a potential disaster in our lifetime. It’s no longer a situation we can just ignore and say “That won’t happen for a while”.

In the fashion industry, that ignorance is also a marketing scheme. The idea that every season needs to be represented with more and more clothing and pre collections that end up sitting on shelves, it’s become a real problem. I think it’s unfair to place the blame on consumers at this point. The world is set in its ways because the people in power don’t want to risk their positions to try to initiate change. For that same reason, the fashion industry has suffered tremendously from a lack of awareness. The old guards of fashion need to be overthrown simply because it’s unrealistic to continue as an industry in such a manner. It sits only behind the oil industry as the most polluting industry in the world. The “Eco-friendly” marketing schemes of companies like H&M should make consumers angry. It’s a play on the nature of buying goods for pleasure. Conspicuous consumption is easier to stomach when you feel like the product is made responsibly. The truth is, though, it’s not the case. The people making the clothing are in unimaginable conditions and these huge companies ignore that. That’s the reality.

Q:  Did the Island School play a role in furthering your interests in the environment and humanities role in it? Was this something you have always found interesting? 

A:  The Island School made me realize there was an opportunity to merge my passions to help the world. It was through being provoked to consider fashion through this lens that made me realize the amount of opportunity that lies within the subject of sustainable fashion. It’s an issue that needs immediate attention, attention that can only be brought by this generation.

Q:  What is next for you? Do you see yourself doing another t-shirt in the future or something entirely different.

A:  This t-shirt is the smallest check mark I plan to check off. It’s my way of saying its “our” time. When I say “our”, I’m speaking for all of the other kids that know how important this issue is and are ready to tackle it with their creativity and talent. The future of our planet is in the hands of this generation. A t-shirt cannot save the world. Great ideas can. This is step one of a much larger plan for making “sustainable fashion” become “fashion”. In other words, the need to say “sustainable” will be unnecessary because it will simply be the way it is.

The problem has been identified. It’s up to us to solve it and I look forward to being a part of the solution.

Devin, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. We look forward to hearing about the changes you bring about in the industry. You can check out the 2020 Vision tee here.  When purchased 20.20% of the profits from the tee go back to The Island School itself.

 
 

 

Neither Nick Pibl nor Caroline McClatchy were part of the Aquaponics research group during their Summer 2014 semester, but both had an interest in sustainable technology. When they returned home, they thought long and hard about how to apply that interest in a productive manner at their school, Princeton High School. Recalling the tank just outside the dining hall on the Island School campus that had fish and mint growing in it inspired them to bring aquaponics to their high school. They “realized that aquaponics is a realistic way for people to implement greener and more sustainable food sources.” When looking around for how to get their project off the ground, the pair discovered HATponics, a company that had previously worked with a local middle school and had developed aquaponics systems all over Georgia and Tennessee. Once Nick and Caroline made the initial connection with HATponics, they struck an agreement where HATponics would build the aquaponics system under the specifications and parameters laid out by Nick and Caroline.

Since space was an issue at the high school, the equipment was installed at John Witherspoon Middle School (JW). Eventually high school students will work together with middle schoolers currently taking a new food science class at the middle school. Both Caroline and Nick have referenced their aquaponics work in a class that they are currently taking at Princeton which has allowed them to demonstrate that school learning does not necessarily have to always be based out of a textbook. Currently, HATponics has stocked the aquaponics tank at the middle school with White Nile Tilapia and has provided organic fish food to feed them. Caroline and Nick are growing kale, arugula, parsley and chamomile in the grow beds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both Nick and Caroline are seniors at Princeton High School and the environmental wet lab they have created will be passed on next year to two incoming sophomores which will allow the school to build on their predecessors’ knowledge as the research is continued into the future.

Nick and Caroline, congratulations to you on founding a new initiative in your school! Everyone at The Island School is looking forward to hearing what you do next!