Trip leaders and students discuss the trips they will be going on at the end of this school year.

For the second year in a row, eighth grade students will be going on Summit Trips in the end of May to cap off their Middle School experience. The trip details have recently been finalized, and many students are excited to depart on them.

Students will choose one of four trip options to go on in May. The trip locations are New Hampshire (costing $453 plus transportation), Delaware (costing $200-$250), Nicaragua (costing $1200), and Spain (costing $1000).

Eighth Grade Dean Mr. Robert Buscaglia says that the goal of Summit Trips is for students to gain self knowledge and to do new things that they wouldn’t necessarily have done without the trips.

“When I look at the goals for this trip, there are two primary things,” Buscaglia said. “It’s that constant searching and discovery and then hopefully that those experiences take place in authentic places where they lead to transformational experiences.”

Buscaglia also said that he was inspired by the teachings of St. Augustine when creating the Summit Trips.

“A while back, I guess it was my second year here, I read an article about St. Augustine as a learner and a teacher. And one of the things I took out of that was that St. Augustine felt that true learning has to involve a couple of things,” Buscaglia said.

One of the Augustinian methods to learning Buscaglia cited is having transformational experiences taking people to a completely different place. The second is searching and discovery.

“Searching and discovery have to be ongoing, and that can lead to deeper understanding and truth, even self knowledge,” Buscaglia said. “One of the other characteristics he talked about was engaging in community, and learning together.”

New Hampshire trip leader Ms. Valerie Gould has planned a very educational trip.

“We’re going to be hiking in the White Mountains as well as working with two educational liaisons from the Appalachian Mountain Club that are going to be teaching participating students about the weather, the formation, and the plant and animal life of the White Mountains,” Gould said.

The students will be sleeping in small shelters along the route to the summit.

“The Appalachian Mountain Club has over a span of probably 100 years now built a series of what they call ‘backcountry huts,’” Gould said. “The huts are kind of primitive. You’re in a room of like 15 bunks and depending on the size of the hut, some of them have multiple rooms, some of them have a couple cabins. There is a crew in the huts that cook breakfast and dinner for you, and they do nature programs at night.”

Gould says the group will have to take safety precautions on the trip.

“Hiking in New Hampshire can be very dangerous, especially when it’s wet,” Gould said. “There’s a lot of rocks, a lot of very large boulders, and it could be very slippery.”

Students will be taking an elective class and strength conditioning to prepare for the trip.

“We’re going to be having a class once a cycle on Day 5,” Gould said. “We’re going to be learning about the Appalachian Mountains and how they were formed and just about different plant and animal species that live in New Hampshire.”

Gould said that every student who will participate must meet a few requirements.

“Everyone who is going has to participate in some kind of strength training because the hiking there is so difficult,” Gould added. “[Athletic Trainer] Mr. Miller is going to be putting together a strength training program for students.”

Another requirement is that participating students must go on two preparation hikes, one in April and one in May.

Gould hopes the students who attend her trip will come out of it with a new respect for the nature around them and for hiking.

“I know a lot of our students may have hiked before, but maybe not something so physically challenging because hiking in New Hampshire is very physically challenging,” Gould said. “I’m hoping that they’ll have an appreciation for the White Mountains area because it is something that personally it is a place that means a lot to me.”

Eighth grade student Kody Kolar is looking forward to going hiking on the trip.

“I’m very excited. It’s a lot different than the other end of the year trips,” Kolar said. “I specifically chose this one because I want to get in better shape and it looks really fun to explore New Hampshire.”

Eighth grader Peter Liu looks forward to “seeing the stars” on the trip.

Middle School teacher Ms. Kim Sheets, who will be one of the leaders for the Delaware trip, has planned a trip that is themed around food and nature. Their summit trip is to a Delaware Nature Center. They will be going to the Ashland Nature Center where the housing is and to the farm they have.

“We will be doing night hikes, which should be fun. Every day we’ll have different programming. One of the days will be spent working on the farm, so we’ll see what actually goes into farming. With the food that we have on the farm, they’re going to cook and prepare meals,” Sheets said.

The trip is similar to a previous Summit Trip to upstate New York.

“Last year we went to a farm run by an alumni Matt Foles in Cazenovia. But with timing and things going on in his life this year we weren’t able to have that,” Sheets said. “What we really wanted to do was find a place that had that farm experience in connection to our theme of the year in studying food.”

Students are preparing for this trip by studying their own food.

“We’re using Academy Block and the themes that we’re studying in Academy Block to make students aware of who and where their food comes from,” Sheets said. “And we do have our garden that we grow for Chester County Food Bank that students will be working on, so that will give them some farm experience.”

Sheets hopes her trip shows students what goes into making their food.

“[The trip] brings farming and nature into perspective for some of these guys,” Sheets said.

Eighth grade student Sam Brecker hopes to strengthen his friendships and learn new things on the trip.

“I’m looking to bond with my fellow brothers here,” Brecker said. “I’m looking to learn about the agricultural lifestyle.”

Buscaglia, who is leading the Nicaragua trip, hopes to show students a new type of service on the trip.

“The Nicaragua Summit Trip is basically bringing kids to a sustainable permaculture farm on the island of Ometepe in Nicaragua,” Buscaglia said. “We’ll spend a week there learning about permaculture and sustainable agriculture and how it can be an alternative to traditional service.”

The students will be working on the farm as volunteers on the trip.

“The guys will be volunteering and doing workshops on the farm to see how that process works, so that we can understand when we look out at the world the needs that are out there and how to best help people,” Buscaglia said. “And it connects to our food unit, so it helps us to learn how to farm in sustainable ways ourselves.”

Buscaglia hopes that the students will get a different type of education on the trip than they usually get when they are in class.

“Being away from our normal learning environment is a really important thing. I think it allows for transformational experiences that allow us to learn and explore together things that are outside of any specific discipline,” Buscaglia said.

Buscaglia said that the aspects of the trips he is mostly concerned about have to do with transportation and logistics.

“Worries when you travel internationally are always logistical in nature, that things go smoothly, that your plane arrives and departs on time, and that your transportation is there when you want it,” Buscaglia said. “And then there is always the worry about when you travel that somebody gets sick.”

The students are taking medical cautionary measures to make sure they stay healthy on the trip.

“I brought in a travel medicine expert, my sister, who consults the Upper School students when they go away,” Buscaglia said. “She talked to them about things they need to know in terms of travel medicine preparation before a trip, how they decide what to eat and what to drink when they’re on the trip, and the rest of it’s when we’re on the ground. It’s just making sure that kids know to keep bug spray on and take malaria medicine if they brought it.”

Buscaglia said he hopes students get a hands-on exploration of Nicaragua.

“I think the goal of this trip is just to really give them that transformational experience,” Buscaglia said. “That ability to kind of go out and explore something on their own where they’re not just learning from a teacher, they’re learning from a local environment and local people. They’re experiencing things, not just reading about them.”

Eighth grade student John Romano hopes to learn about the lifestyle of the Nicaraguan people.

“I hope to be able to learn a bit about the culture and get immersed with another country’s culture and their experiences and what they go through in their day-to-day life,” Romano said. “We’ll be working on the rural farm, so I’ll be able to get an insight in what the country’s poorer people do and how they live their daily life.”

Spain Summit Trip leader Ms. Teresa Lohse hopes to teach the students on her trip about the Spanish culture and language.

“The purpose of the summit trip to Spain is to immerse students in another culture and another language so that they can learn as much as possible while they are there,” Lohse said. “They will be staying with students and families from the Aquinas American School, just outside of Madrid.”

Lohse hopes that the students can gain a respect for the country and its people.

“My hope is that the students will love Spain and be wonderful ambassadors for Malvern and for the United States,” Lohse said. “I do not have any specific worries but in general, I want the students to appreciate the experience and to be very respectful to everyone we meet.”

Eighth grade student Travis Camp is hosting a Spanish exchange student in addition to doing the trip.

“I’m having an exchange student from Spain stay with me for about a month,” Camp said. “It’s going to be a really fun experience to form a bond with a kid from another country, and I hope I will be able to see him again.”

Cole Caba, an eighth grade student who will be attending the Spain trip, sees this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“The reason why I chose the Spain trip was because I felt like I would never really have this opportunity to go to Spain again,” Caba said. “I’ve been in Central America and near Venezuela before, so I just wanted something new to experience the culture and how they live.”