The first two weeks here at the Island School have been anything but uneventful. As we are sure you can all imagine, getting the semester started and contending with Hurricane Floyd has made life for us action packed. The orientation alone consisted of everything from getting to know each other as students from varied backgrounds, to interaction with the local Eleutherans.

The school's first several academic days consisted of very location specific activities. These included a study of local flora and fauna, map making and navigation, and an exploration of the local marine environment. The students' immersion into the local culture was spearheaded by a history department field trip that required the students to visit and experience the local community's Methodist and Baptist church services.

News of Hurricane Floyd's eminent arrival sent us on a five-day-long adventure throughout central and southern Florida that became affectionately known as OAF, "Operation Avoid Floyd.". Flights were arranged to transport everyone from the Rock Sound Airport to Fort Lauderdale Jet Center on Twin Air. From Fort Lauderdale students were driven to our first location of refuge, Archbold Field Research Station, just north of Lake Okechobee in Lake Placid, Florida. At this facility students were given the opportunity to get hands on experience in valuable field research techniques. Much of the days there were spent paralleling the work done previously in Eleuthera. We studied samples that are unique to that specific environment while hiking through Archbold's conservation areas.

After two days at the Archbold Facility, the community traveled to Miami and Coconut Grove's Ransom Everglades School, home school of our own student, the legendary Eden McDowell and our own English professor George Miller. Ransom Everglades was extremely welcoming and provided room and board while the students continued their daily regimen of morning exercise and classes. This regimen was supplemented by several extensive field trips to the University of Miami's various libraries, meteorological and aquaculture facilities. These excursions included lectures on weather tracking and aquaculture led by one of the world's leading experts in the field, Dr. Daniel Benetti. The students were even given the opportunity to visit contemporary and ground breaking aquaculture research projects set in the upper Florida Keys.

As enlightening and enjoyable as this trip was, the students were ready to return home to Eleuthera. To everyone's relief the school was found to have weathered the hurricane exceptionally well. There was negligible structural damage to the buildings and campus. The clean up work consisted of un-boarding the windows, re-transplanting some plants, mopping floors and re-installing equipment that was placed in storage. Upon reestablishing the basic functions of campus including providing drinking water, freshwater for showers, and electricity from generators, the students and faculty pushed forward with the academic process that had begun during orientation and continued during the unexpected leave of absence from the island.

Since our return we have explored the mangrove forest as part of a science field trip, we have studied the chemical and biological processes that formed the limestone substrate of the Bahamas platform in history and science, we have been reading the epic poem Omeros in English class, and using maps and map drawing in math, science, history and art as an interdisciplinary theme. The trip out to the conch beds with a local conch fisherman was the prelude to conch research in science and gave students the opportunity to try snorkeling and collecting conch for themselves. Journal assignments in history and English have been daily exercises and the first English paper is due tomorrow (Monday). Spanish and Math classes have continued in small groups of 4 and 5. The grid power has been restored which makes computer work and watching movies on Saturday night easier. The phones are still not connected to the outside world, so we are relying on Twin Air and the US postal service to help parents and students stay in touch.

This is the first of a series of informative installments that will be posted weekly by the students of The Island School. Check in regularly to keep abreast of what your friends, family and classmates are up to.


Working hard in math class!!	Tony going over safety protocol

Doing research in Florida	Back on Island, enjoying class