2/17/2009 - Students spend week in north
Rachel Pacella Ocean City Today
Katherine Jansen and Lindsey Miller, members of Stephen Decatur High School’s American Field Service Club, go sledding in chilling temperature during the club’s trip to Wisconsin last month.
(Feb. 13, 2009) Not long ago, a dusting of snow prompted school closures and the cancellation of all afterschool activities throughout Worcester County. But while the halls at Stephen Decatur High School buzzed with comments about the unexpected weather, members of the school’s American Field Service Club couldn’t quite comprehend all the fuss.
After all, the seven students had just returned from a five-day exchange trip to Burlington, Wis., where temperatures dropped to -15 degrees on Jan. 15, the day the group arrived, and continued to hover around the sub-degree mark throughout the week.
“The weather is a lot different than here,” Clarke Bliss, president of the American Field Service Club, said of Wisconsin. “They go through nine months of the year with snow.”
Advisor Belinda Sawyer organized the trip, which matched Decatur students with host families in Burlington and with students in a similar organization, the Multi-Cultural Club, at Burlington High School. While the American Field Service Club is part of an international organization that arranges student exchanges globally, the program does not sponsor shortterm exchanges like this one.
The traveling Seahawks were led throughout each day by members of the Multi-Cultural Club. Class schedules are broken into seven periods a day, compared to Decatur’s four. The group also visited Milwaukee, where they toured the Harley-Davidson Museum, and Chicago, where they visited the Museum of Science and Industry, the largest science museum in the Western hemisphere.
While in Chicago, the group stopped by Ed Debevic’s Rude Diner for dinner.
“It’s this chain of diners where everyone is really rude to you; they make fun of you and sip out of your drink. But it is supposed to be like that. It’s really funny,” Bliss said.
In between school and traveling, the students hung out with their hosts and participated in activities that are com- mon in Wisconsin but sometimes impossible in this part of Maryland, including ice skating on an Olympicsize rink and sledding at Mt. MacLean, a part of the Burlington branch of the YMCA.
“Traveling like this opens your eyes to the rest of the world. It’s very important because you don’t know how other kids live. When you live with families, you learn a lot about your hosts,” said Bliss, who also traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., last year with the American Field Service Club. “This experience gives us a chance to make great friendships and bond with new people.”
The students from Burlington will come to Berlin and Stephen Decatur High School in March.
“They like to see the ocean and get away from the cold. A 20- or 30-degree difference is a change to them,” Sawyer said.
No student from Decatur has traveled abroad during the time Sawyer has sponsored the club, but last year the school hosted three international students, from Germany, New Zealand and Argentina. This year, Decatur was unable to find host families for students. Sawyer said the decrease in sponsorship is most likely because of the economy.
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