Attention alumni! Edd Brooks, shark project manager, is in need of some support on his upcoming shark expedition and is looking to The Island School alumni network for help. November 6-18, Edd and his team will be in Little San Salvador to recreate shark surveys that were conducted in the late 1970s. Their goal is to identify any shifts in the diversity and abundance of sharks in the last 30 years. If you are interested in applying to join this expedition or have any other questions, please contact Edd at eddbrooks@islandschool.org by October 14th. Continue reading
Tag Archives: CEI
Apprentice Profile: Serrano Gibson
Serrano Gibson of Wemyss Bight joins us at on campus as part of the apprentice programme this summer, working under Marco. Below are some of his thoughts on working here:
As a summer employee at The Island School, I am working with an intelligent hard working young man name Marco. I’m helping him with making bio-diesel fuel out of used cooking oil, which is used in vehicles instead of diesel purchased at a service station. I am also cleaning the diesel tanks so that the new fuel can be clean and just right. The bio-diesel is inexpensive, reliable and eco friendly to our environment.
We are also on the road a vast amount of time making stops at different restaurants on the island picking up bottles of cooking oil that the restaurants no longer need to make the bio diesel and replacing the empty bottles with new ones to refill. It’s a long days work. We sometime end up in Harbor Island. This is a great experience for me.
Aquaculture Research Class
[slideshow]Digging my fingers into the dog food like fish meal, I grabbed a handful and tossed it into the large tank filled with ravenous cobia. This is one moment that we experienced during our introductory day to the world of aquaculture. Many people don’t fully understand how aquaculture works or even simply what it is. Aquaculture, otherwise known as fish farming, is the cultivation of aquatic plants and animals, and is often perceived as a sustainable practice. However, people do not realize the negative repercussions that it has. To sustain the farmed carnivorous fish, smaller pelagic fish must be harvested to create fish meal. Our goal through this project is to determine if we can use a smaller percent of fish meal in the feed and still produce an equal amount of growth.
Last semester a group students compared the growth of fish using 40% fish meal feed and 80% fish meal feed and found that there was no difference in the rate of growth. This summer we are comparing the growth of fish using 25% fish meal to 40% fish meal. We are predicting that the fish fed 25% fish meal and the fish fed 40% fish meal will grow at the same rate. If our data supports our hypothesis, then aquaculture can become a more sustainable industry. Currently we are testing 3 tanks filled with cobia, 2 of which are fed 40% fish meal and the other 25% fish meal. One problem we face with the cobia in close proximity is the transmission of parasites.
One method used to remove parasites is formalin, a chemical that can cause excessive damage to not only ourselves but the environment around us. A new method that has been recently proposed is the use of gobies, which are cleaner fish. Another thing we would like to study in this term is the use of formalin compared to the use of gobies to remove parasites. We hypothesized that sadly the formalin will be a more effective parasite removal method. This is because the gobies have too many variables that we are unable to control, such as the cobia may eat them.
We have already learned much about the sustainability and misconceptions of fish farming. We hope that we can find ways to make aquaculture a more sustainable industry for the future! Working in the lab is always a fun and interesting part of our day and we cannot wait for the results of our experiment.
Alumni On Campus: Hannah Druckenmiller
Hannah Druckenmiller (F07) is back on Eleuthera, this time as an intern at CEI. She joins the aquaculture team this summer in between semesters at The Leland Stanford Junior University, where she is a rising sophomore. There she studies earthsystems, which is an interdisciplinary major encompassing environmental science, economics and politics. Following her semester at The Island School, Hannah knew she wanted to return, and decided on an aquaculture internship after hearing a lecture on the subject.
This is not her first trip back since she was a student, as she was on island for the 10-year reunion. The difference this time is that she’s getting her hands dirty. She’s also gotten close to some sharks since she’s been back, including watching a lemon shark rip a carcass off of a bait cage and spotting a hammerhead.
Her work here gives her a new appreciation for the Cape, and she’s enjoying being down here with the freedom to explore more than she could as a student. In the work she does, she’s also been given quite a bit of freedom to figure things out independently, “I didn’t know the first thing about oxygen generation equipment, but now I’m making recommendations on which systems to buy,” remarked Hannah.
When Hannah leaves in August, she’ll be headed back to California. She is looking forward to a 3-week camping trip to learn about the natural history of Monterey, before going back to class.
Bahamian Apprentice Programme Expands at Cape Eleuthera Island School
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On the tip of Eleuthera, the Cape Eleuthera Island School is continuing to expand its Bahamian Apprentice programme. This summer, six Bahamians are joining teachers, researchers, mechanics and farmers to learn the tools of the trades. The hope is that they will take their skills and learning back to their home settlements and communities. Participants in this year’s programme are Nicoya Taylor of Deep Creek, Serrano Gibson of Wemyss Bight, Ted Hall of Rock Sound, Troy Williams, Stanchez Ferguson of Waterford, and Perry Ford of Wemyss Bight. The apprenticeships will run through the 19th of August.
This year the program has expanded to include biodiesel manufacturing, auto and boat mechanic work, permaculture (farming), educational programmes, culinary arts, and facilities maintenance. There are also research opportunities available to college students and recent college graduates offered through Cape Eleuthera Institute. Cristal Munroe, of Nassau and graduate of the University of New Brunswick, and Tika Penn, also of Nassau and currently studying Small Island Sustainability at the College of The Bahamas are the first of what stands to be a long line of scholars to go through the program.
Continuing to expand the program will be made possible, in large part, because of the generous support through donations and sponsorships made by local people and businesses. “What will allow this programme to continue reaching more young people is community support,” said Kalin Griffin, human resources director.
The aim of the programme is to teach students skills they can use in the real world, skills that supplement what they are learning in school. “They are learning to solve real world issues in the areas of renewable energy, sustainable development, environmental conservation, and food security. The transferrable skills and knowledge that they gain through this apprenticeship is incredible. I hope that more young persons will apply for these apprenticeships,” added Griffin. The Cape Eleuthera Island School and Cape Eleuthera Institute provide an ideal setting for a wide variety of apprenticeship opportunities because of the facilities and type of work that goes on there.
To learn more about the apprenticeship programme, or what you can do to support it, please contact the Cape Eleuthera Island School at 242.334.8551, or visit their website at http://ceibahamas.org/local-students.aspx.
Bahamian Apprentice Spotlight: Perry Forbes
Perry Forbes is from Wemyss Bight and is a student at St. John’s University in Minnesota. His major is environmental management, and he is back at CEI this year to participate in the Apprentice Programme. He shares his thoughts on working at the Cape Eleuthera Island School below:
My name is Perry Forbes and I am currently in the summer apprenticeship at the Island School. I am working in the boat house under Jessie Pearce who runs the boat house. In the three short weeks of working with him I have learned how to perform basic of maintenance on boats, how to inspect and repair SCUBA equipment, as well as how to drive boats the correctly.
In addition to working in the boat house I also work with the educational programmes at the school. When working in this department I would usually give tours to parents and their children, supervise and be an active part of summer camps, as well as informing children about their environmental responsibilities.
Fish Silage: Turning Fish into Fertilizer
Island School students, Aldis, Brett, and Sara are doing a human ecology project that utilizes the cobia harvesting waste into livestock feed and fertilizer, trying to further close the loop in our sustainable model here at CEI/IS. The fish silage will be used to feed the pigs and tilapia, as well as a fertilizer at the farm. Continue reading
Cobia for Parents Weekend Dinner
The Island School parents arrived for the weekend’s festivities full of excitement and overjoyed to see their children and their life for the past 3 months.
After 7 months of raising cobia, CEI’s aquaculture program decided to conduct the first harvest of 2011, just in time for parents weekend. A total of 150 cobia were harvested and filleted by CEI staff and IS students Brett, Sara, and Aldis. All fillets were prepared on the grill by Geoff and our lovely kitchen staff. The grilled cobia fillets were presented at dinner and cobia ceviche as an art show appetizer wednesday evening. After so much hard work and various obstacles, the aquaculturalist’s at CEI were overwhelmed with joy and tasted the success of cobia at dinner! There is more to come!
Where does all the cobia carcass waste go?
Stay tuned for our next update… “Fish Silage”
Cave Divers Present to IS and CEI
In the last week of March, The Island School campus had the honor of hosting cave diver, Brian Kakuk and his team at The Island School and Cape Eleuthera Institute. Brian and his team have been diving caves and blue holes in The Bahamas for more than 20 years and were in South Eleuthera on an expedition. The many Blue Holes in South Eleuthera contain an intact fossil record that is helping the scientists piece together the history of The Bahamas as far back as 4,000 years ago. Continue reading
Special Delivery
Introducing The Island School Farm’s six newest residents. In the past ten days six baby goats were born to three different mothers, increasing the number of goats living on the Cape to 11. Two were born little over a week ago with another two born last Saturday and the youngest two born on Monday. The kids are all doing well and adjusting to life on Eleuthera. Pictured are Moon, Shadow, Eli, Sunday, Flapjack, and Bonnie along with CEI staffers Al, Eric, Kelly, and Whitney as well as IS farmers Joseph and Noel.