Carver High Students Prepare for Once-in-a-Lifetime Learning Experience

Six G.W. Carver High School juniors and seniors will travel to Costa Rica this summer to experience first-hand the language and the culture of the Central American nation.

The students and their families raised the majority of the more than $14,000 the trip will cost. AMERICAN Cast Iron Pipe Company, as the school’s Partner in Education, will contribute the rest.

To reach their goal, the group also started a ‘Go Fund Me’ campaign online, passed out flyers, solicited donations from churches, businesses and other sponsors, and sold cookies during a promotion called Cookies for Costa Rica.

“We had students apply for the trip last year and six were chosen to go,” said Carver High School Spanish teacher Rebecca Blumenfeld, who previously accompanied Carver students on learning excursions to France and Spain. “It’s hard to accurately express how appreciative we are to AMERICAN; we never would have made our deadline had it not been for AMERICAN, and we are just fortunate to have a company such as this that supports our students.”

While there, the group will explore the Costa Rican culture, touring the rain forests and visiting local schools. About 25 percent of tiny Costa Rica’s land area has been set aside in national parks and protected areas, and the government’s goal is for it to become the first carbon-neutral country by 2021. Blumenfeld hopes the students will come back from the trip as environmental stewards, feeling a responsibility to protect and preserve the natural environment. The students and fellow classmates have already brought a little bit of Costa Rica, one of the world’s “greenest” countries, to the school by launching a paper recycling program.

Three of the student travelers — seniors Erin Berry and Sydney Symone Tate, and junior Jamerial Gardner — are most excited about touring the rain forests and getting to see monkeys during the nine-day trip.

Both Gardner and Berry are the experienced travelers of the bunch. Gardner, who wants to be a chemical engineer, has spent time in China, Beijing and Shanghai through the Birmingham Beijing Project and is fluent in Mandarin-Chinese and Spanish. She was recently named “Birmingham Student of the Year.” Berry has traveled with family to Mexico, Honduras and Beliz, and wants to study biology, genetics, psychology and criminal justice after high school.

“To prepare for the trip, we’ve been taking extra Spanish, and we come to after-school meetings where we are learning about what to expect from the Costa Rican environment,” Berry said. “It’s exciting but scary too. We want to be prepared.”

Tate, who has an interest in studying social science and English in college, will be traveling outside of the country for the first time and said the students are blessed to have this opportunity.  “It is a blessing that all of our paths have ended up here. We feel like family, and now we get this amazing chance to apply what we have learned in class together in the real world.”