Photo Courtesy of Abby Lindsay

The AP Biology field trip took place at Port Isabel Island.

In AP Biology, students have the opportunity to experience a field trip where they step outside of their comfort zone of the confines of school, participating in an interesting experience while applying the material learned throughout this year.

Senior Lea Widemann is eager for the field trip because it is a fun and unique opportunity. The field trip is at Port Isabel Island, on November 21, and involves going without any sort of media. That means phones, computers, television, etc. This experience is a favorite of past students of AP Biology, and is different from all the rest.

“I’m super excited. It’s a good opportunity to spend time with friends and disconnect [from] technology,” Widemann said. “I’ve also heard a lot of good things from people who have gone in the past.”

Widemann is one of the many focused and motivated students at WJ who takes AP courses, leaving her with lots of work to get done since there is so much going on in those classes, especially double periods such as AP Biology.

“I think AP [Biology] is a really fun class even though it’s a solid amount of work. We do a lot of labs and I think the material we learn is really interesting and easily applied into an out of class context,” Widemann said.

Two years ago, Widemann attended the AP Psychology trip at the Science Center in Baltimore. Although she enjoyed it, she does not believe it is comparable to the AP Biology field trip. According to Widemann, she has a lot more to be excited about for her upcoming trip.

“I’m looking forward to star-gazing, mud fights, and not being able to use technology or clocks,” she said.

Senior Krista Smith-Hanke is also planning on attending the field trip. Her excitement for the trip contrasts with her sentiments towards the course.

“I took AP [Biology] last year and although it was the hardest class I’ve ever taken by far. It was also the most rewarding. I learned a lot about how to take notes, study for tests, and manage my time in addition to everything I learned about biology,” Smith-Hanke said. “Initially I didn’t like AP [Biology] because it was more work than anything I had ever done before. I used to go home and work on [biology] for hours. I pulled so many all-nighters for that class [that] it was crazy. Usually I would end up going to bed at around 2 or 3 a.m. because that’s how much work it was. It definitely [wasn’t fun], but it was so worth it in the end,” she said.

Like Smith-Hanke, many high school students rarely get the chance to break away from their busy schedules to attend activities and events outside of school.

“The last field trip I went on was in middle school,” Smith-Hanke said. “This field trip is going to apply the concepts from AP [Biology] to the physical world. It’s going to be really cool to see all the things we learned about in class in real life. The trip focuses on the environmental components of the course, but ties in all other units as well. I’m really excited to be able to see what I spent six hours reading about every night.”

Widemann and Smith-Hanke are just two of many excited and determined science students who are planning to go on the field trip today.