It's the Final Countdown

We started off our early morning taking the final assessment of the Gates Mills intensive weekEl. After walking out of the class, the true excitement began as we were finally done with our last day as first-semester seniors at the Gates Mills campus. After our long post-test break, we knew we would have a day full of craving to reach the sandy shores of Eleuthera ahead of us. Speaking for everyone, we are all anxious enough to get on a plane and begin our Bahamian adventure.

1/2 the crew

We returned to the class to watch a documentary about renowned oceanographer Sylvia A. Earle, Mrs. Becker’s second favorite scientist (behind Joy, of course). She truly was an inspiration to us, demonstrating that everyone has the opportunity to make a difference, like being a model for women in the science community or her work protecting the ocean with Mission Blue.

Sylvia Earle hard at work

Right after lunch, we were assigned to individually read Rediscovery of North America. This short book, by Barry Lopez, is mandatory for everyone to read before they head to Island School. In the reading, we learned about Bahamas’ past and saw how it’s not just a “beautiful island” like everyone’s imagines it to be. Afterwards, we had small group discussions where we each shared our main takeaways from the reading.

Finally, to honor the spirit of Mr. Daly’s impact on our class, we watched his favorite documentary about Sir Ernest Shackleton and his Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It put some of our worries about the next two weeks into a different perspective and made us feel lucky to be able to travel to such a wonderful and tropical place.

evern Shackleton loves his puppies

We are all excited to spend the weekend packing up for what we have been waiting for all semester: THE BAHAMAS. Everyone is checking through their bug spray, making sure that the DEET is protective enough. However, now that we got our fresh new mosquito nets, there’s no way we’ll get any bug bites, right? Right?!

Looking forward to exciting times ahead,

Josh and Nicole