Students share experiences in travels
SENECA VALLEY — Samantha Kollek is the most adventurous of her family.
So a trip to Costa Rica, a country with the unofficial motto “Pura Vida,” which means embrace the moment and love life, would naturally feel freeing.
“My family is in this general area. No one's really branched off anywhere,” said the 17-year-old Seneca Valley Senior High School senior. “It's opened my eyes that there's so much more out there.”
Samantha was one of a group of 40 students and others who traveled to Costa Rica in June with Seneca Valley High School anatomy and molecular biology teacher Rebecca Finch through EF Educational Tours, a program that helps educators create immersive travel experiences.
Over the course of 10 days, the group visited the Santa Elena Cloud Forest, trekked through national parks, toured the canopy, swam in hot springs and even participated in a cultural exchange with locals.
“For many kids, it was their first time doing these things,” Finch said.
The group flew into the capital city of San Jose and continued to travel west to the Pacific coast. Along the way, students got a taste of the sweet and savory through coffee, pineapple and chocolate tours and high-adventure activities, including white water rafting, snorkeling, ziplining, kayaking, hiking the Arenal Volcano National Park and swimming at Baldi Hot Springs.They saw an organic pineapple plantation and learned how to pick the perfect pineapple, took a boat trip through the rain forest with a naturalist, rafted along the Sarapiquí River and saw an active volcano.Whitewater rafting was Samantha's favorite activity and taught the group team-bonding as the members navigated their course, Samantha said.During their time exploring the rain forest, they could see it glow because the forest was bioluminescent, Samantha said.As an early birthday and Christmas present, the trip offered Samantha an outdoor educational experience, she said. Aside from traveling to Canada, it was her first time out of the country.The memories will last a lifetime, Samantha said.“I don't think I'll ever forget this trip,” she said. “It was the most fun I've ever had on anything.”
After Seneca Valley Senior High School senior Mathilda Nye secured the last spot on the trip, she worked to pay her way.Before the trip, Mathilda, 17, traveled to Haiti with her church on a mission trip and Mexico for a weeklong vacation.During the night walk with the naturalist, the group searched for insects and frogs with flashlights. At one point, they turned off their flashlights, closed their eyes and listened to the sounds of nature.“You really hear all the different noises,” Mathilda said.Mathilda brought a bag filled with black volcanic sand home from the group's snorkeling trip, where she saw hundreds of fish. She also had the chance to touch a starfish that suctioned onto her hand.The experience made her feel like the outsider as they viewed the fish in their natural habitat versus in a tank, she said.Travel has shaped her into a well-rounded person, she said, because of the chance to learn about different cultures.“Every time I travel I learn more about myself, and I learn more about how much I do love travel and other people's cultures,” she said. “You get to broaden your horizons.”
This is Finch's seventh trip with EF educational tours and her fourth trip to Costa Rica, she said.On a previous trip to Costa Rica, Finch had a group of 70 in attendance, which shows the popularity and affordability of the trip, she said.Finch led her students on the tour to expand their worldview, immerse them in new ways of life and learn by experiencing the culture, history and language of a place firsthand.“What I enjoy most about traveling with my students is looking at the world through their eyes — I'm often seeing things for the first time alongside these 18-year-olds,” she said.Twenty-first century skills are reinforced and enhanced through foreign travel, she said.“Communication, initiative and social skills are all areas which high school students typically need improvement, and I believe foreign travel promotes each of these and more,” she said. “It also encourages students to put down their phones and experience life in real time.”The next trip is to Iceland in 2021. People who are interested can email Finch at finchrs@svsd.net.Finch hopes her students gain an appreciation for different ecosystems, she said.“When you hear about 'Save the rain forest,' these kids now truly understand this is a very delicate and important ecosystem on this planet that needs to be remembered and taken care of,” she said. “These simple lessons now resonate with these kids in a way that I hope they can make small changes.”
- Although explored by the Spanish early in the 16th century, initial attempts at colonizing Costa Rica proved unsuccessful due to a combination of factors, including disease from mosquito-infested swamps, brutal heat, resistance by natives and pirate raids.It was not until 1563 that a permanent settlement of Cartago was established in the cooler, fertile central highlands. The area remained a colony for some two-and-a-half centuries. In 1821, Costa Rica became one of several Central American provinces that jointly declared their independence from Spain. Two years later it joined the United Provinces of Central America, but this federation disintegrated in 1838, at which time Costa Rica proclaimed its sovereignty and independence.Since the late 19th century, only two brief periods of violence have marred the country's democratic development. On Dec. 1, 1948, Costa Rica dissolved its armed forces.- This Central American nation, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Pacific Ocean, between Nicaragua and Panama, is slightly smaller than West Virginia.- Its climate is tropical and subtropical. It has a dry season (December to April) and a rainy season (May to November). It is cooler in the highlands. Its terrain is coastal plains separated by rugged mountains, including over 100 volcanic cones, of which several are major active volcanoes.- Its population of 4,987,142 is 83.6 percent white or mestizo, 6.7 percent mulatto, 2.4 percent indigenous, 1. 1 percent black of African descent, 1.1 percent other, 2.9 percent none and 2.2 percent unspecified.- The official language is Spanish, but English is also used.- Costa Ricans are Roman Catholic 71.8 percent, Evangelical and Pentecostal 12.3 percent, other Protestant 2.6 percent, Jehovah's Witness 0.5 percent, other 2.4 percent and none 10.4 percent.- Costa Rica's political stability, high standard of living and well-developed social benefits system set it apart from its Central American neighbors. Through the government's sustained social spending — almost 20 percent of GDP annually — Costa Rica has made tremendous progress toward achieving its goal of providing universal access to education, health care, clean water, sanitation and electricity. Since the 1970s, expansion of these services has led to a rapid decline in infant mortality, an increase in life expectancy at birth, and a sharp decrease in the birth rate. Costa Rica's poverty rate is lower than in most Latin American countries, but it has stalled at around 20 percent for almost two decades.- Since 2010, Costa Rica has enjoyed strong and stable economic growth — 3.8 percent in 2017. Exports of bananas, coffee, sugar and beef are the backbone of its commodity exports. Various industrial and processed agricultural products have broadened exports in recent years, as have high value-added goods, including medical devices. Costa Rica's impressive biodiversity also makes it a key destination for ecotourism.- Costa Rica is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor; Costa Rican women and children, as well as those from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries, are sex-trafficked in Costa Rica. Child sex tourism is a particular problem with offenders coming from the United States and Europe.SOURCE: CIA World Factbook
