Continuing the trend of lasts, yesterday was our last class for Human Ecology Final Projects. Jack and I finished up our inner loop project. We were finally able to put the signs up around the inner loop and we also cleared up several trails for future explorers. I can’t wait for today’s Human Ecology extravaganza and show what we have accomplished. We will be giving short presentations about each of our projects, on a rotating schedule all afternoon. And, we will be hosting local students guests from Deep Creek Middle School and Central High School.

In the afternoon, I was with my awesome advisory and we worked on our Demonstrations of Learning that we will present together on Monday. The DOLs are our final assessments, showing what we have learned here for the past three months. People can do Power Points, speeches, or any other creative way to express what they have learned.

Afterwards, I went with my kayak group, K2 (wahoooooo) to eat dinner early, and leave for our night dive. Continue reading →

Yesterday was the last full day of classes. Although some of us were sore after the big events over the weekend, we pulled through and were able to wrap up each class very well. Our classes were math, histories, literature, and art. I really enjoyed histories yesterday where we talked about an article from The New Yorker called The Headstrong Historian. It told a story about the colonial past of Nigeria, the impact of the Christian missionaries on the people, and how a family changed because of it. I especially liked this reading because it had a lot to do with the concepts we’ve learned in the Humanities curriculum here. I thought it was interesting to see parallels between the Nigerian family who had sent their children to a Catholic school to learn the ways of the white man in order to regain the land they had lost, and our book from literature, Omeros. A lot of change happens in Omeros with the personal journeys of Achille, one of the main characters, and the author himself. But in the end, amid all the tourism coming into their island of St. Lucia, Achille does not give into tourism and retains his connection to the sea. I appreciate how the concepts from a single class here can inform and enrich our learning in other classes.

Last night during study hours, we also wrote letters to our sending schools to tell them about the experiences we’ve had here. It’s been amazing here, and I can’t believe we only have 9 days left in the semester.

It’s the day after Thanksgiving (Happy Black Friday)! Yesterday at the Island School was a great day. It was full of laughs, giving thanks, as well as classes. In Human Ecology, we continued to work on our final projects. It was great to see each project coming together as the Human Ecology Extravaganza in the upcoming week approaches, where we’ll all be presenting what we’ve accomplished with our group. After classes, the whole community came together dressed up at dinner circle. Each one of us at circle went around saying what we were thankful for. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be here at the Island School and to be part of such a wonderful community.

After giving thanks, we all sat down in the dining hall. The walls of the dining hall were decorated with the hand turkey drawings we made, as well as the final touches of the Caciques and faculty. Continue reading →