Whitney Knowles joins Cape Eleuthera Institute as the Small Island Sustainability Aquaculture apprentice from the College of the Bahamas and the UBS scholarship award recipient. Though she resides in Nassau she considers Eleuthera home, as she grew up in North Eleuthera and attended Bluff All Age primary school. Whitney was on the JUMPSTART Programme at Anatol Rodgers High School, an academic program designed to challenge highly motivated high school students to obtain college credit and to explore career interests before entering college. It was during this time that she became increasingly interested in the study of sea life and first heard of The Island School. After viewing an inside feature on the Island School on channel 13 – BLC, she learned of its alternative food production systems through their aquaculture and aquaponics programs and from there became inspired to go into conservation and marine biology.
She joins the aquaculture research team at CEI until August 17th and is excited about getting her scuba certification and to continue to learn more about all that is involved in the farming of aquatic organisms over the summer. She reports that she is also getting increasingly interested in aquaponics, and would like to return to COB with the knowledge to help grow and maintain the aquaponics field there.
Whitney hopes to use this experience as a formative step on her path to find a career in marine sciences. She views her pursuit of a career in aquaculture, she sees this as a combination of her love for marine biology and a global solution to provide a sustainable source throughout the Bahamas.