De Pere college students journey overseas to Sweden for cultural expertise

By Mary Culotta
Contributing Writer

DE PERE – Six college students and two lecturers from De Pere are touring on Feb. 27 to Åmål, Sweden for over per week to immerse themselves within the tradition.

From De Pere High School, Tudor Cristescu, Sam Hornseth and Katie Soquet will journey together with Charity Kibbe, Holt Wojciechowski and Penny Youngworth from West De Pere High School.

Åmål is the sister metropolis to De Pere and the 2 cities have exchanged grownup delegations earlier than, however this would be the first time De Pere college students journey to Åmål.

The group consists of three freshmen and three seniors from West De Pere and De Pere excessive faculties together with lecturers Kelly Suda from West De Pere and Randy Soquet from De Pere.
In Åmål, the scholars will stick with a number household and shadow highschool college students as they attend the native highschool, Karlbergsgymnasiet.

Karlbergsgymnasiet has solely 800 college students in comparison with the mixed over 2,000 college students at each West De Pere and De Pere highschool.

Åmål sits on the banks of Lake Vänern, the biggest lake each in Sweden and the European Union as an entire and consists of over 20,000 islands.

Karitas Lif Hjelm, a excessive schooler from Åmål who’s right here in De Pere for a 12 months, talked with the De Pere college students concerning the tradition and metropolis.

Hjelm talked about that Åmål is surrounded by nature, “It’s so peaceful, it’s so quiet, it’s not in a big city…The nature is very close by. Instead of driving to the woods or to a hike, you just walk a very short distance.”

Nature isn’t the one factor the group can be taking a look at, they may also dive into cultural experiences similar to watching floorball and hockey video games, assembly with native political leaders, visiting Viking ruins and taking within the 500 12 months previous structure round them.

“Its such an old city compared to De Pere, the buildings carry a lot more history than around here,” one of many college students stated.

Outside of shadowing highschool college students, they are going to go to the center faculty and the elementary faculty the place the De Pere fifth graders’ pen friends attend.

Walkability of Åmål is one thing that each the scholars are wanting ahead to as Hjelm stated that every thing may be very shut by, the grocery retailer is just a 15 minute stroll away from her home.

Students are additionally excited to satisfy new individuals and see the variations between our tradition and Sweden’s together with their meals, households and extra.

“Its important to realize that there is more outside of the United States of America, there’s opportunities out there and it’s important to keep an open mind.” one pupil talked about.

The college students are touring by way of the alternate program, AFS (American Field Service) which despatched over 400 college students overseas this previous 12 months.

Sunday, Mar. 8 would be the group’s return date to De Pere.