2025 - 2026

Carbon Neutral Alliance @ the Community Picnic

Welcome Back ISK!

We kicked off the year at the ISK Welcome Back Picnic with an incredible showcase of student-led sustainability!

Carbon Neutral Alliance members Plastiki Rafiki, the Greenhouse Club, 3D Fundi, and Thrift Treasures joined forces to celebrate our mission for a greener ISK.

Visitors made their own keychains from discarded bottle caps using our hand-cranked injection molding machine! Our partner workshop from Mathare joined the fun — arriving in the TukTuk we donated last year!

Next door, the Greenhouse Club cooked pancakes on a student-designed mobile biogas system, served with stingless bee honey harvested right from our school hives!

And Thrift Treasures brought the style with pre-loved clothing finds!

A huge thank you to everyone who stopped by — what a perfect way to start a sustainable school year!

Between Land and Sea: Mangroves

article by Jia Pandit

Over the past 40 years, the world has lost more than 20% of its mangroves, a quiet piece of the climate crisis unfolding. Along the edges of warm tropical coastlines, anchored in mudflats or the mouths of rivers grows one of the planet’s most extraordinary ecosystems: the mangrove forest. These trees thrive where few other plants survive, in salty and poor oxygenated environments, protecting this planet and countless species. Their destruction may seem distant especially as they grow in very few regions but their impact means much more.

Why Mangroves Matter

Mangroves protect both people and nature which sometimes goes unnoticed. Their intricate root systems act as natural infrastructure protecting coastal communities from storms, floods and erosion. Beneath the surface, mangrove roots also provide nursery grounds for numerous species of fish and other marine life. In fact, more than 1500 species from birds to reptiles depend on mangrove ecosystems. In reality, these coastal communities depend on the ecosystems that mangroves provide for these animals as many peoples livelihoods come from fisheries which would not be possible without them.

Their value does not end there, as mangroves clean the water by trapping pollutants and sediments. However, mangroves biggest impact is that they are among the most effective carbon sinks on Earth, storing carbon not only in their trunks and branches but deep in the soils beneath them. Though they make up less than 1% of tropical forests, they can hold up to 10 times more carbon than other forest types. By locking away vast amounts of carbon, mangroves reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and help slow global warming.

The Destruction of Mangrove Forests

The destruction of mangrove forests has an immense impact on the environment. When they are cleared for shrimp farms, coastal development, or logging, centuries of stored carbon are released back into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change.

Biodiversity suffers as well. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 15% of all species linked to mangroves are now threatened with extinction. Nearly half of the mammals that rely on them are at risk. Also, the short term profits that people might gain from destroying these forests ignores the long term detriments like losing protection from storms, declining fish populations and poorer water quality.

Kenya: A Case Study in Conservation

Kenya’s coast tells a different story: one of renewal and innovation. About 65% of Kenya’s mangroves are found in Lamu county, where they protect the local communities. This year the new HS Swahili Culture trip visited the Mikiko Pamoja Project. Mikiko Pamoja is a global example of community driven conservation. It is the first project in the world to sell carbon credits from restoring mangroves. The money earned funds local schools, clean water and health initiatives, which is reinvesting into the communities that support the project.

Since 2022 ISK has collaborated with LEAF, a community run project in Kilifi, as part of our offsetting and sustainability initiative to help ISK meet its commitment to become carbon neutral by 2030. Our HS Coastal Conservation trip visits the community and helps plant and clean mangroves.

These projects show that protecting mangroves is not only about saving trees. It is about involving these communities and showing how nature and people are connected.

ForageFinder: AI-Powered Mushroom Predictions & Identification

Developed at ISK, ForageFinder is is an experimental mushroom foraging tool and an educational platform that teaches users aboit Kenyan mushrooms using a trained AI model. Discover the hidden spots where mushrooms are growing right now. The app uses open source meteorological tools to create an algorithm that predicts the environmental conditions that trigger mushroom fruiting.

How the app works

Mushrooms don't just appear; they require a very specific sequence of weather events. When you scan an area on our map, ForageFinder analyzes 14 days of historical weather data and a 3-day forecast, hunting for this perfect pattern:

The Deep Soak: At least 3 consecutive days of steady, heavy rain to saturate the ground.
The Mild Incubation: Immediately followed by 1 to 3 days of mild, humid conditions (between 5°C and 32°C) with only light, scattered showers.

If an area matches this exact "heavy rain followed by a mild break" formula, it lights up on your map as an Optimal Foraging Zone.

Key Features

Real-Time Heatmaps: Scan your local area to instantly see where the weather has been perfect for foraging.
Find Nearest Hotspot: Nowhere near a good spot? Our expanding spiral search will locate the closest ideal foraging zone up to 135km away.
AI Foraging Reports: Tap any hotspot to get an AI-generated prediction of the top 3 mushroom species likely fruiting there right now based on that specific location's weather data.
AI Vision Identification: Found a mushroom? Snap a photo in the app, and our advanced Gemini Vision AI will instantly identify the species, its edibility, and key distinguishing features.

Between Land and Sea: Mangroves

Article by ISK Senior Jia Pandit

JPandit Mangroves Article

Earth Day - April 24, 2026

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to all the community partners, as well as the many parents, students, and staff who generously gave their time and expertise to make ISK Earth Day 2026 such a success.

Through your support, our High School and Middle School students were able to engage in a wide range of meaningful, hands-on experiences - from distributing seedballs, making sustainable soap, learning more about waste management, exploring sustainable transport and testing e-bikes, to identifying local bird species, learning about the plastic recycling process, and even designing a recycled plastic bench in Karura Forest.

The day also created on-campus service opportunities. CAS groups led interactive and informative sessions in the Middle School. Students from the Middle School shared their enthusiasm and energy with many Elementary School classrooms.

It truly was a whole-school event! We are also proud to share the inspiring sent in by ISK alumni from the classes of 2021 to 2025 (see below). These students embody ISK's mission and vision: inspiring and nurturing passion, creativity, and ambition in pursuit of a better world, and empowering students to create solutions for tomorrow's challenges. In the video, they reflect on the world-class opportunities they had at ISK to develop their skills in sustainability and advocacy, and how those skills helped them reach destinations as diverse as renewable energy at Stanford, Robotics AI Vision at Harvard, and the lunar moon base project at SpaceX.

Also hear our keynote speech from Leah Ferrell, class of 2020 (see below), now an energy justice activist with Solar United Neighbors. As Students for the Environment leader, she proposed to the Director and Board that ISK become carbon neutral, and together with the Carbon Neutral Alliance helped secure ISK's commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.

Thank you to all of our community partners for supporting this annual event: E-Bee Bikes, Buffalo Bikes, Tour de Friends, Solar United Neighbours, KEAN International, Seedballs Kenya, InsectiPro, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Center, UNEP, Greenthing Kenya, Grove & Meadow, Grounded, Born Free Foundation, Kenya Bird Society, Planta Food Factory, Soul Vegetarian Kenya, Taka Taka Solutions, Mlango Farm, KSPCA, Loop Pet Foods, High School Clubs (Plastiki Rafiki, Crochet Club, GIN, Elements Writers, Tupike Global Dishes, Yoga), Student CAS Projects, MS & HS Student Presenters.

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