Preparing for an adventure of a lifetime, students and teachers are looking forward to immersing themselves in different cultures as they explore Italy, Croatia, Germany and Bosnia this summer.
Social studies teachers Nicole Harner and Jessica Muller will be leading a group of 88 students and 13 chaperones through Italy. The trip takes place June 18-29.
According to Muller, the group will exploring all parts of the country.
“The trip to Italy consists of traveling to many different cities,” Muller said. “The places we will be sightseeing are in Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and the Island of Capri.”
In addition to sightseeing, the trip to Italy includes planned activities such as pizza-making classes in Naples and glass-blowing demonstrations in Venice.
Muller has never been to Italy, but is looking forward to being in cities that are old and filled with history.
According to Harner, she is also excited to show students the history and culture of Italy on this trip.
In addition to all of the touring, students will be spending time at the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.
The group will be taking a red-eye flight and Harner has some advice to avoid jet lag.
“You must sleep on the flight and drink lots of water and lots of fluids,” Harner said. “When you get off the plane, try to stay awake to get on a schedule with the eight-hour time change.”
After having been immersed in the history that they learned in school, Harner hopes that students return from the Italy trip with, “a passion for travel and experiencing other cultures.”
On June 28, another group of students will begin their Global Leadership Summit adventure.
Overseeing this trip is Spanish teacher Brittany Mercado and technology education teacher Brian Ruth.
The group, which will be traveling to Croatia, Germany and Bosnia, will return on July 10.
It takes years to plan trips of this magnitude. “We began planning 18 months in advance, if not more,” Mercado said.
According to Ruth, there are now 14 students going on the trip.
Mercado and Ruth held a meeting to review the types of weather and different climates they will be experiencing while traveling.
“We will fly into Sarajevo, which is in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We’ll spend three nights there. We then travel to Split, Croatia, where we stay two nights,” Mercado said. “We will then travel over to Dubrovnik, Croatia, and then fly over to Berlin, Germany and have four nights there.”
Mercado is anticipating the many learning experiences the group will experience.
“I am really excited to open students’ perspectives to other ways of living as well as other people’s history,” Mercado said.
Two of the sights Mercado is most excited to see are the Diocletian Palace in Croatia and the Topography of Terror Museum in Germany.
For Ruth, he looks forward to this trip because he has not traveled to any of these places before. He is also interested to see how the leadership conference will go.
“At the end of the trip, there is a three-day leadership conference where all the students are going to get paired up with people from all over, and they have to design a product that will better humanity,” Ruth said.
According to junior Kami Ziegler, the students going on the Global Leadership Summit have been given instructions on how to prepare and what to pack.
“During our meetings, Professor Mercado explained to us that since you won’t want to be lugging around a giant suitcase, what type of clothing you pack matters,” Ziegler said. “I plan on packing clothes that can double as other outfits to save space.”