Hi families, friends and alumni!

The Island School campus has been a whirlwind for the past week. Preparing for parents' weekend, Junkanoo, and the everyday academic priorities has kept the student body pretty busy. Here's a run through of what has been going on.

Camilla and her Mom Parents Weekend

While some arrived early or late, the bulk of anxious parents pulled onto campus around five in the afternoon on Thursday the 16th of November. The students stood in groups scoping out who was in which car. As soon as someone's parents pulled in, their child sprinted like they were on the home stretch of morning exercise into their arms. After hellos in the parking lot, each student took their parents through the art gallery. Here they got a real sense of what we had been doing in this course all semester long. The four main areas of land and environmental art (integration, interruption, involvement and implementation) were diversely demonstrated through the works of art of the entire student body.

Allison checking out the Art Show

Then we sat down to the first dinner we'd had with our parents since early September. All the mothers echoed each other with the question of whether or not we always eat this well. After a night together, we whisked our parents off to their houses and went to work on academics.

The next day entailed a slide show about The Island School and meetings with faculty advisors. That night things got wild after the sun went down. The local guys pounded on their drums for an evening of crazy Junkanoo dancing. Even our parents got into it!

Dancing the night away

Saturday we taught our parents to SCUBA dive, kayak and snorkel after an invigorating morning at High Rock. Finally on Sunday we had time alone with our parents to see the sites, visit at Cotton Bay, hang around campus and just play tourist. That night we said our good-byes and reassured them that we would be home soon enough.

Parent's Weekend

While our parents were here, we also had to keep up on our workload. Writing the life histories of three island locals, English essays, art, and the ever-present science research projects took up most of our parent-absent time. We had our first real run through for our science presentations in front of our parents on Friday morning. With such a friendly and supportive audience the mangroves (YEAH Mangroves!!!), artificial reefs, aquaculture and conch group got a real taste for presenting. This was great practice for the presentation each group will be delivering to a group of Bahamian dignitaries on the first of December.

Morning Exercise

On Wednesday the 23rd, we had our final community outreach lesson with the sixth graders from primary schools throughout southern Eleuthera. Throughout the semester each Island School student has been paired with two or three sixth graders and has prepared and taught lessons on endangered marine animals and the Department of Fisheries regulations for fishing in the Bahamas. These lessons involved traveling to their own schools to work with the students in their classrooms. The last two lessons, snorkeling and computers, involved the students being bussed out to the Island School campus to have lunch and spend the afternoon with their Island School student. They have prepared posters on what they have learned and will be presenting them to Bahamian dignitaries on December 2nd who will act as judges to determine the best poster and award the sixth grader a prize.

General Shenanagins

We have really settled in for the remaining two and a half weeks in the semester. We are all excited to be home with our families and friends. At the same time, we are all sad to be leaving this place and each other. This has become our second home and it is strange that our three-month sleepover with some of our best friends will be coming to an end. But as you can tell with all the work that needs to be done by the end of term, we don't have much time to dwell on it.

Thanks to all the parents for making The Island School Parents Weekend Fall 2000 a great success and even more fun. Thank you for all your support and encouragement. We can't wait to see you and everyone else on December 8th.

Brought to you by the Fanjul Advisoree : Laura, Tom and Caitlin
And by George's Advisoree : Carrie, Camilla and James