Learning beyond the book

Dual credit U.S. History students explore state of Louisiana, city of Houston

Dual credit U.S. History students traveled to Louisiana on Sunday, April 8 to visit the National WWII Museum and explore Louisiana State University as well as the city of New Orleans. On the trip back on Tuesday, April 10, students made a stop in Houston to tour the University of Houston.

“We wanted to give students an opportunity to see and experience these unique locations,” AVID teacher Bradley Willi said. “We hope they enjoyed the trip, appreciated the service and sacrifice of the men and women in WWII, and were able to see two universities they might attend.”

While students had fun exploring the towns and universities, they also gained information to potentially help them in their history class. The trip provided new, unique experiences for some students by visiting these two famous cities, which made it a trip for the memory books.

“It almost broadens your perspectives on things,” junior Tayvion Jones said. “Because you know I thought I probably won’t have another opportunity to go otherwise [so] I feel like if you don’t go you’ll just be missing out. I felt like I came there with less knowledge then left there with more knowledge especially of WWII.”

With Jones being from Michigan, his highlight from the trip was in New Orleans where was introduced to different foods he had never tasted including alligator, oysters and beignets.

“There’s just so many different energies [and] vibes [including a] very diverse group of people all coming together and just having a good time [so] it’s almost overwhelming,” Jones said. “There’s just so much going on in one place. It’s so different I’ve never seen anything like that. [I didn’t realize] how much different different places can be.”

Junior Ana Martinez believes that being with friends is an important factor when going on a trip because it helps to grow closer to them. The old buildings at LSU were Martinez’s favorite characteristic of the university as they contain a large amount of history.

“I wanted to go on the trip because of LSU since [it] is the college I want to go so I was really excited to go visit it and see what I like most about it,” Martinez said. “But I also wanted to go [because I wanted to] spend time with my friends [since] I don’t really get to do that that often.”

Martinez’s favorite part of New Orleans was the Mississippi River because of its calm and relaxing water. She also enjoyed dropping by the National WWII Museum to see the airplanes and everything else it had to offer.

“I’ve been [to New Orleans] before but this weekend we got [to] walk more,” Martinez said. “[This trip gave] us more of a visual; we’re not just reading out of the book we actually get to interact and see things [people in history] did and used and I think that’s going to help me remember things easier.”