St. Louis High School’s juniors and seniors who belong to the Spanish Club have returned from their trip to Costa Rica March 31.
The student’s flight first left Detroit at 5:45 a.m. Saturday, March 20. They had a short layover in Miami, Florida, before getting back in the air to finish off their flight to Costa Rica. The educational trip allowed students to experience the Spanish language in full while simultaneously immersing themselves in the culture of a new country.
St. Louis’s resident Spanish teacher and Spanish Club advisor shared her perspective behind the trip, stating, “We travel with a company called EF, who specialize in organizing educational trips for student groups, so they help a lot with getting trips going as well as getting ready to travel. I still have quite a lot to do on this end, including promoting the trip in my classes, holding a registration meeting with students and parents, and helping students get ready to travel. This is my third trip, so I had a better idea of how to help students prepare for the trip. We had lunch meetings leading up to the trip to talk about what we would need, what we would be doing, and what to expect in terms of travel, like going through the airport and the kinds of hotels we would be staying in.” Kisser further explained, “I think travel is very beneficial for anyone! Getting out and seeing the world helps to understand and put in context things you learn about in class. For my students, it exposes them to Spanish in real-life contexts. However, on these trips, we can see a lot of how people live day to day in the countries we travel to; we can see how similar we are as well as differences in ways of life. On this trip, we also saw a lot of nature; Costa Rica has a lot of biodiversity. We were able to explore several different ecosystems in different regions of the country, including a tropical rainforest, a cloud forest, and a mangrove forest. I also think traveling takes you out of your comfort zone in many ways, which allows students to learn about themselves and grow from the experience,” she finalized.
Spanish club member Gracie Lombard shared, “I originally wanted to go on the trip because I had friends that went on the Ecuador trip, and I had heard about how much fun they had and things they learned, and I wanted to also go on a fun trip where I could learn a lot along the way. In general, I learned a lot about Costa Rica and its history from our tour guide. I also got to see firsthand what the culture was like there, and I got to be around people who were actively speaking Spanish, even speaking a bit of Spanish myself. My favorite part of the trip was kayaking. I know it was a lot of people’s least favorite part because of the thick fog, heavy rain, and strong winds, but I really enjoyed it because I had never kayaked before, and I got to feel like a pirate. One of the things that surprised me was the fact that you can’t flush toilet paper there. It was definitely something weird I wasn’t expecting. I also learned new things like that Costa Rica doesn’t have an army and that it is a green country.”
The next Spanish Club trip will take place in the spring of 2025 to Panama.
