Originally from Nassau, Kerwin Mullings comes to The Island School as a graduate of C.V. Bethel Senior High School.  Garnering a strong interest in the environment and marine sciences, Kerwin saw The Island School as an opportunity to not only pursue his passions but also gain experience in a field he hopes to work in professionally. An explorer at heart, Kerwin hopes to one day travel the world working as an environmental scientist.

Having just returned from his 8-day kayak trip, Kerwin is excited to be back and dive right into life on campus again.  Discussing his trip, Kerwin says, “Kayak was great. What I liked the most about it was solo”.  Looking ahead, Kerwin is excited for parents weekend and being able to share everything he has accomplished so far with his family, particularly the work he has done in research class. Reflecting on his experience thus far Kerwin says that The Island School has broadened his perception of the world, creating a “watershed that gets wider and more detailed with every step”.

Deneé Rankine comes to The Island School from a bit closer. Hailing from Savannah Sound located 60 km north of campus, Deneé enters Fall 2014 as a graduate of Central Eleuthera High School. Always making those around her laugh, Deneé is interested in marine biology and hopes to continue her studies pursuing an undergraduate degree in the States after her time here. 

Having also  just returned from her 8-day kayak trip, Deneé is excited to reconnect with academics and friends on campus. Discussing her experience, Deneé says that her favorite aspect of the trip by far was the close bonds she developed with peers as a result of 8 days spent kayaking in a small group.  Over the next half of the semester, Deneé is most looking forward to the Research Symposium in November and is excited to see her family over parents weekend.

We would like to thank our supporters of the BESS program over the years: The Moore Bahamas Foundation, AML Foods Limited, Bahamas Waste Limited, Frank & Cha Boyce, BREEF, The Brown Foundation, Cans for Kids, Cape Eleuthera Resort and Marina, Carey Construction, Cates Family, Colina Imperial, Cotton Bay Foundation, John and Tanya Crone, Frank Crothers, Sean & Sarah Farrington, Friends of the Environment, Amanda Graham, Lawrence Griffin, Bobbie Hallig, Lynn Holowesko, Stephen & Alessandra Holowesko, Horation Alexander Catering & Events, Nancy Kelly, Mark & Dawn Knowles , LaBoiteaux Family Foundation, Lori & Jimmy Lowe, Lyford Cay Foundation, Lyford Cay School, Mactaggart Third Fund, Will & Lisa Mathis, Chris & Pam Maxey, Mark Maynard, Ross & Nancy McDonald, Chuck & Reva Murphy, James and Kylie Nottage, Lady Eugenie Nuttall, Hap & Cecilia Perry, Stuart & Robin Ray, Save The Bays, Scotia Bank, Brian & Laurel Smith, Brent & Robin Symonette, Craig & Michelle Symonette, TK Foundation, Donald & Debbie Tomlinson, Peter and Pippa Vlasov and Beatrice von der Schulenberg.

To mark their continued relationship of support, AML Foods, through their Solomon’s Fresh Market Brand presented the Bahamas Environmental Steward Scholar program (BESS) with a $5,000 donation. Renea Knowles, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for AML Foods, presented the check to a grateful group of scholarship award recipients and partners, which included Franchesca Bethell and Cristina Roberts 2012 BESS students Trueranda Cox, (BESS alumnae 2010), Garneisha Pinder (BESS alumnae 2010), Charlene Carey, Environmental Educator at BREEF, and Kalin Griffin, Chief of Staff at The Island School.

Solomon’s Fresh Market demonstrates its dedication to fostering environmentally friendly practices and community service through its second year of charitable support of the BESS program. Donations that support BESS scholarship opportunities connect conservation organizations throughout The Bahamas by bridging education and service of young Bahamians in support of a national conservation movement.

“At Solomon’s Fresh Market our mission is to support healthy living and contribute to the community that we live in, while helping to preserve our environment for future generations. The Island School has a similar pledge and we are proud to be able to once again partner with them and assist the school in their efforts of educating our youth in this most important field” said Renea Knowles.

High School graduates, awarded BESS scholarships, spend a GAP year attending the Cape Eleuthera Island School’s semester program. Island School students engage in academic and personal growth while learning critical concepts of environmental research, leadership, community service and global citizenship. BESS students spend the other half of their year in the field serving one of a partnership of Bahamian conservation organizations including the Bahamas Reef Environmental Education Foundation (BREEF), the Bahamas National Trust, The Nature Conservancy, and Friends of the Environment.

“BESS has provided tremendous opportunities for Bahamian students to engage in real life conservation work. Many of our BESS students are engaged in field studies and research of national significance with the Department of Marine Resources, Cape Eleuthera Institute and The Bahamas National Trust which will help us achieve our national conservation goals,” said Charlene Carey, Environmental Educator at BREEF.

The Island School and The Embassy for the People’s Republic of China celebrated a growing partnership this summer as the Embassy welcomed Bahamian Environmental Steward Scholar alumni (BESS) and Island School alumni Garneisha Pinder (F’10) and Bradley Watson (F’08). Pinder a rising sophomore at The College of The Bahamas and Watson a rising senior at College of Charleston, attended the Training Course on Bio-gas Technology for Developing Countries on May 15th – July 9th. You can hear more about their experiences on our previous blogs about biodigestion, genetic engineering, and making biogas from straw.

The focus of the training was how to effectively create and utilize bio-gas—a process which takes organic wastes like sewage and agricultural runoff and converts them into methane gas, a clean-burning fuel with many applications, such as cooking and heating. This end product is a renewable energy source for both urban and rural areas of China and can be applied anywhere else in the world.

The partnership between the The Embassy for the People’s Republic of China and The the Island School has continued to grow since a visit to campus by the His Excellency Hu Shan last April. During the visit, His Excellency Hu Shan helped open the Cape Eleuthera Institute’s Hallig House and toured the school’s pilot first-in-The-Bahamas biodigester and biodiesel facilities. The school plans to use both human and pig waste to generate enough energy for cooking food and heating biodiesel. Seeing the work being done at the Island School prompted the Ambassador to offer scholarships to two Bahamian students for the 56-day training course.

The students’ aim of the program is to share and implement the renewable energy technologies that they they learned in China in their local communities and throughout The Bahamas. Both Pinder and Watson were exceedingly grateful for the opportunity and experience. “We learned so much about sustainable energy production, with applications for right here in The Bahamas, and I’m excited to put it into practise,  Development in industry, and agriculture should not compromise the environment and I can see biodigestion technology playing a part in reducing the negative impact such development can have on countries like the Bahamas.” said Watson.

Well my friend from Tanzania’s proposition is that we engineer soy bean plants to grow under lower light conditions or alter them in some other way so that they can compete with other plants grown in the same system. He wants to use the fertile soil created by these legumes to grow wheat at the same time for example. We don’t have the time to selectively breed a new variety of soy bean and/or wheat to provide the amounts of food we need these days but GMOs could help us achieve these goals sooner. I had never thought of them this way.

Today’s lecture was on the bacteria and archaea that produce the methane gas in a biodigester and the speaker, Dr. Lei Cheng, showed a graph of methane production against time for naturally occurring microbes and GMOs. The GMOs far out did the naturally occurring strains in gas produced per unit time, no surprise there. These GMOs could help us turn wood chips, newspaper, and straw into biogas much faster than we can now. They could make biogas production more economically feasible and push these projects beyond government subsidization. How could I avoid GMOs now?

The last and most compelling use for GMOs came from Mr. Tanzania again (he is a patriot). He mentioned the possible use of genetically modified microbes that feed on the components that make up landmines. These organisms would be modified to glow under UV light. If you seed a minefield with these guys and come back a week later with a UV light you should be able to find the spots where colonies have formed on their food source, land mines. So many countries and people suffer from these death fields left behind after conflicts. Some much money goes into training dogs and even rodents to search for mines. Useful farmland goes to waste and young, innocent children loose limbs to these hidden weapons years after the political side of the conflict has been put to rest.

If these are the possible uses for GMOs I say go for it, and quickly. The thing is, we need all the biodiversity we can save to use for our modifications.

On my return from a semester of studying Buddhism and Plant Taxonomy at the College of Charleston I received an email offering me an opportunity to go to China and study Biogas production at the BIOMA institute. At first I was filled with disbelief and then excitement took its place. This course that the Chinese Government offered for two Bahamian students would include people from other developing countries like Dominica, Columbia, Ghana, Niger, Venezuela, Nepal, Tanzania, and others. The last time I heard about biogas production was at the Island School while I was mentoring students during its first summer semester as the first stages of their bio digestion project began. The first time I was exposed to the concept of producing methane gas from organic wastes like sewage and agricultural by-products must have been in some documentary or reading that is now only a foggy memory. I had no idea that I would get a chance to gain a technical understanding of how these systems work from such seasoned practitioners as the professors of the BIOMA Institute who had taught 47 of these courses previously. With my goal of improving the sustainability of the Bahamian lifestyle in mind I could hardly imagine all the benefits of two young scientists being exposed to such a program, and for 56 days!

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One of the benefits I could imagine was an improved waste treatment system to reduce eutrophication of our reef ecosystems due to the “soak away” systems conventionally used on our islands. Another was the ability to produce methane gas on family islands reducing their dependence on and importation of propane gas for cooking fuel. The course would be worthwhile even if a bio-digester simply provided a use for all the food “waste” that would be discarded otherwise, even though it was originally imported at a high economic and environmental cost when it was considered useful food. The immense responsibility of implementing such systems made this opportunity a great honor, and one I could not turn down no matter how much anxiety I felt.

Now here I am in China after having my eyes opened to the practicality, beauty, and necessity of economically, socially and environmentally sustainable systems at the Island School. Although I am intimidated by the qualifications of my classmates my experiences as an intern at the Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) add to my confidence in this research oriented setting. After working with the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) I am excited about the challenge of encouraging the implementation of small scale bio-digestion systems in any practical application in the Bahamas. I just hope I can live up to the expectations of my fellow Bahamians, and the others who have invested their time and resources in my education and the development of sustainable systems our country as I act as an ambassador of my government on this course and when I return to our shores.

Thinking of Home,

Bradley Watson

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Here is a detailed account from Alannah of her experience at the Youth Leaders Luncheon:

“Along with his buzzing entourage of assistants and photographers, Prince Harry made his way around the room, visiting each table that represented various clubs and organizations, shook hands with each member and had a short but sweet conversation. Finally he approached our table, I’m certain that both Tru and I held our breaths. From left to right he shook our hands, asking our name and what we were about. When he got to Tru, it was almost like he had dialed an automated answering machine! Tru spat out the textbook version of the BREEF mission and the work we have done in the community. After about 30 seconds of large words moving at 100mph, the baffled Prince politely interrupted Tru and said, “I’m sorry, I’m not a very clever lad, could you please start over, but go a little slower…Uhh, what is BREEF?” The table laughed at Prince Harry’s modest remark as Tru collected herself and recited a more relaxed version of what BREEF is about. Prince Harry was quite impressed and encouraged us to continue our advocacy.”

We are so proud (and jealous!) of you all.