Students from Palo Alto High School’s Advanced Placement photography class, having returned from their recent trip to Australia where they taught classes at Lithgow High School, now look forward to next fall, when Australian students will visit this fall.
[slideshow]The week-long excursion, which took place over spring break, was part of an exchange with Lithgow High School, in Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. Teachers from Lithgow visited Paly in October.
According to senior Scotty Bara, who took part in the trip to Australia, Paly’s three attendees informed Lithgow students about American photography.
“We visited the school [Lithgow High School] and presented to three classes about photography, art and journalism in the United States,” Bara said.
While they enjoyed the ability to spread their own lessons, they also had the chance to familiarize themselves with Australian culture.
“Australia is an amazing country,” Bara said. “We visited the [Sydney] Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the Royal Botanic Gardens, The Rocks, Chinatown, a small surf town called “Manly” and many other places in Sydney. We then stayed … in a small town called Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.”
Along the way, the students took pictures of the scenery.
“I mostly took pictures of the amazing landscape … to show family and friends,” said senior trip-member Oskar Ehrensvärd.
Overall, the students took away a variety of different meanings from their experience. Upon return, Bara felt a stronger connection to nature.
“I learned to appreciate the beauty of nature a lot more,” Bara said.
Ehrensvärd, on the other hand, was inspired to travel the globe.
“I already knew that I wanted to do more traveling in the future,” Ehrensvärd said, “[but] after this experience I’m even more excited to travel and see the rest of the world.”