With the emergence of school trips in recent years, students mindlessly passed by posters in the halls of Camas High School (CHS), picturing beautiful green landscapes or foreign monuments with perfectly placed sunsets framing the background. These posters depict student opportunities at CHS to explore outside their community, even abroad. While these posters may be out in the open, the knowledge about said information can be secretive when students do not know where to look.

CHS choir teacher Ethan Chessin is hosting a trip to New York for his students during the Memorial Day weekend in May. The goal of this trip is to learn about Jewish history and explore the cultural context of the music the CHS choir studies.

“There are so many incredible cultural institutions, neighborhoods and opportunities for students to interact with people and communities they wouldn’t have otherwise in Portland and Camas,” Chessin said.

With New York City (NYC) holding the most prominent Jewish population, students can further understand and perform the material they have been learning. This study of culture is a result of the collaboration with musical artist Alicia Jo Rabins in NYC.

“[Rabins] has a project she’s been doing for a number of years called ‘Girls in Trouble,’ which is stories of women from the Torah, the old testament, that are reinterpreted through modern eyes,” Chessin said.

The musician has taken those stories and rewritten them for a choral ensemble to be aided by the CHS choir. 

Vanessa Martinez, a sophomore at CHS, is attending this summer’s Japan trip hosted by Japanese teacher Karen Lovre. This trip will not be going out of state but out of the country to Japan.

“I think [the trip to Japan] will be a lot better than the East Coast trip. There will hopefully be a lot less presidential monuments,” Martinez said.

While the trip was first announced to Japanese 1 and 2 students in the spring, it is still open to any CHS student hoping to sign up this year. The itinerary includes sights like the Harajuku District and numerous Japanese temples and towns. 

The other school trip announced last year is the summer of 2024 Europe trip hosted by Sports Medicine teacher Jacob Howell. This trip will cover multiple countries, such as France, Spain and Italy.

CHS student Issie Dean, attending this trip, said, “I didn’t know about the trip until my parents told me. They were trying to convince me to go because I’ve never been out of the country.”

This trip has no specific target class, so the information may be more challenging to find. Nonetheless, it is still gaining much-deserved traction among the students of CHS with its vast itinerary full of multiple exciting countries to visit. 

The purposes and the making of school trips are endless. It is always a good idea to keep in touch with what information is being given about such tours. So, students should remember that the next time they walk by a poster in the halls or receive an informational email about a new school trip, it could be in their best interest to take another look at what they offer.