IB Anthropology took a trip to the Amish Country in Intercuse, Pennsylavnia on April 19. They left AHS on a charter bus at 6 am.

“We went on the trip to learn about amish culture bc it’s one of the cultures we study,” junior Shirley Chu, said.

The field trip was optional: although, many chose to go.

“I went on this field trip because… why not? But not only was it fun it was really cool to be able to see the culture and meet the people that we have been studying for the past year in anthropology,” Senior Bitania Endalkachew said.

The field trip consisted of a bus tour of the amish farm and school house. They also toured through an amish house and learned about how it was set up. The students looked at Amish clothing and were given the opportunity to pet animals.

“The tour guide told us about the Amish community and pointed out Amish structures until we stopped at an Amish shop,” Endalkachew said. “There, an Amish man explained a bit more to us about buggies and their way of life and we were able to look around.”

Although the students had been studying the Amish for months, the trip furthered their knowledge.

They learned about the individual people in Amish communities. Including how the Amish lived with english men and were not totally separated from society. They go to Costco and have neighbors who are regular people. They also learned about the three languages that the Amish speak and the scooters that they ride.

“We learned about the Amish homicide committed by an English man, which I had never heard about,” Endalkachew said.

Students not only learned a lot about what they’d been studying for months, but also got to experience new things.

“My favorite thing about the trip was walking around the Amish village and looking at the farm tools and animals,” Chu said.

“My favorite thing was the little Amish kids we saw, they were adorable,” Endalkachew said.

The trip tied in closely with the curriculum students had been learning all year and helped students understand the material more and go more in depth.

“This ties in perfectly to my class. We have learned about them all year and it was nice to be able to really see what we were learning about. It made it seem more real, concrete, and relevant,” Endalkachew said.