Recently, the fifth graders at The Walker School took a four day class trip to Driftwood. Here they learned about marine life, aquatic animals and each other. When asked about her favorite part about Driftwood, Rayna Paramesh said it was “the campfire hands down. You really didn’t have anything stressing you out at all, you really were just eating s’mores and hearing random stories.” The students attended classes that allowed them to have a hands on approach to their learning. The students also learned about different topics including squids through dissection, animals in a touch tank, and lots of different types of fish.  

For many students, this was their first time away from their parents and some were very nervous about the trip. Fifth grader Cara Cone was one of these people, she said, “I was mostly worried about not being able to speak to my parents and missing home.” Eventually, Cone began to enjoy her trip to Driftwood, she said that she “thought that the classes were gonna be like school classes and school classes are very boring. But down there it was fun and it was worth going. The girls in my cabin and my learning group were really nice and so that made it worth going.”

There were many unexpected things that happened on the Driftwood trip besides being away from their parents. Shiva Sajja said that the most unexpected thing that happened to him was he “drank plankton” and that it was salty. “It was like going into the ocean and swallowing water,” Sajja said.

When Mattie Lou Light was asked what the coolest thing she did at Driftwood, she said, “We got to go on a boat and catch animals inside a net and we got to pull up the net. We caught blue crab and squid and jellyfish and shrimp.” Carson Hodges said Driftwood was a “trip you will probably never forget in school that you will probably take.  Even though it’s very long – like four or five days – it will feel like an hour because you’re just so busy and you don’t have anytime to think of what is waiting home for you or anything. You’re focused [on] the task at hand and you don’t really think about anything, you’re kinda free to think about whatever you want.”

When asked to sum up the trip in four words, Rayna Paramesh said “There are no words to describe how good it is, but I’ll try.” Paramesh then said that the trip was exciting, exhilarating, scenic and fun.