Junior Enrique Aguliar and his Group IV partners have been preparing for the expected trip to Lake Accotink for their project for weeks prior to the cancellation.
“We were pretty much prepared,” Aguilar said. “We knew what we were going to do; we had designated areas for our experiment, we had to inspect the whole area for trash and then we were ready for the whole project- we were prepared for it.”
Soon after meeting with their group supervisor, Aguilar and his group were told that the trip for Oct. 30 was cancelled, and that they should go to the park on their own to ensure data collection.
“I felt kind of sad becaue I really was counting on it and wanted to get it over with. I was ready to go for it,” Aguilar said.
The decision that the trip to Lake Accotink would be rescheduled was made shortly after the required forms and $5 fee was due, causing confusion for many students.
IB biology teacher Rachel Lazar sent out an email through Blackboard immediately after the cancellation to her students saying the Group IV field trip was cancelled. Soon after, she sent another email about the school field trip being rescheduled to keep her students informed, assuring that despite “the field trip being cancelled, the project is not” along with a warning to students to stay tuned.
Group IV is the equivalent of an IB science fair that each IB science student must participate in. Each group is ideally made up of one physics, biology, environmental science, design tech or chemistry student.
Students work together to formulate a guiding question, create a hypothesis and do research based on the guiding question. However, each individual focuses their part of the project based on their specific science.
“[The point of this is] to show us how all of the sciences are connected,” junior Allie Vogus said. “I myself am a biology student, so I will be focusing on the qualitative observation while studying at the lake.”
All groups have finished their research, and are waiting for the final decision about the trip. The teachers will soon meet to discuss the future of the first out-of-school field trip. The original presentation date, Nov. 15, wll be changed accordingly.
