50th Timeline: 2014 – The Return of International Field Trips

One of Beth Reaves’s initiatives was to reinstate an earlier tradition of international field trips. Beth recalled that “Friends School has always been very big on out of classroom experiences for students, allowing them to have time outside off campus to really experience the outdoors and just take in all that the world has to offer. So here I was thinking that it would be great for our 8^th graders to have some sort of culminating experience that really brought together a lot of what they learned in the classroom and also gave them an experience outside of New Jersey, outside of the country if possible. So, we landed on Costa Rica, a country known for its biodiversity, a lot of great learning. It’s also incredibly safe for students to travel.” Hanshi Deshbandhu, who had led many international field trips during her days as a teacher, now sat on the Board of Trustees and gave her enthusiastic approval to Beth’s proposal. In the new version of the program, the School made the Spring trip to Costa Rica a capstone experience for the 8^th graders. The trip focused not only on the fun and joy of visiting another part of the world but also on incorporating academic learning. Students spoke Spanish with locals and studied the ecology and biology of a place with very different fauna and flora. This 8^th-grade trip to Costa Rica has continued on an annual basis, and it perfectly highlights the value that the School has placed on having students leave Mullica Hill to experience the world beyond. For 5 decades, students have travelled with their teachers to hundreds of places both close and far, including Philadelphia, Gettysburg, New York City, Washington, D.C., the Jersey shore, the Virginia Barrier Islands, the Poconos, and various locations in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Costa Rica.