For our sophomore trip, we went to Costa Rica. We landed in San Jose and traveled up Monteverde. We learned about the wildlife in Costa Rica and were able to see various animals, including sloths, tarantulas, and lizards. Throughout this trip, we also tried many of the foods that Costa Ricans typically eat. We also saw multiple beaches and learned about Costa Rica's government and clean energy system. 

This trip connects to the pillar investigate the world because we were able to be immersed in Costa Rica, which gave us a clear understanding of this different nation. We got the opportunity to learn about the culture and speak with the locals of the country. This trip was a great opportunity to investigate the world directly and not through researching the country from the United States. 

We did not have many projects in French this year. However, I did get to begin learning how to speak, read, and write in French. I also learned about French culture and compared it to our American culture. This included comparing our holidays, schools, and everyday life. This class connects with the pillars of investigating the world, communicating ideas, and recognizing perspectives. These pillars were shown in how we learned about the French people, and also how the french language has been spread throughout the world because of French colonization.  They were also shown because I began to be able to speak some French which gave me more ability to communicate ideas, some of which was used during the Europe trip to communicate with French locals. 

In chemistry, we learned about the mole, which is a unit used to express extremely large numbers of atoms in a more simple form. For this project, we had to choose a certain form of art to depict Avogadro's number. This project connects to communicating ideas because we used an unconventional form of media to convey a scientific principle. This project taught us that we can use different mediums to convey ideas about any subject.