Academic updates from Brenna

Travel Journalism

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Traveling through Namibia we have had the privilege to visit a school, help teach at an orphanage for the HIV/AIDS and disadvantaged children, learn about cheetahs and drive through Etosha National Park. As can be imagined it is hard to decide which activities or opportunities to write about when all carry a certain amount of emotion and lessons for our journalists. The students are now writing their third and final article on their experience here in Africa and the difficulty is not how to write the article, but what to write about. Every student has had different experiences, but the challenge is how to share what they have been doing with people back home. Why did they decide to study overseas? This is a question many people ask, not just to the girls, but the girls ask themselves. As the semester comes to a close, I have asked the girls to reflect on their decision to join The Traveling School for a semester and how society might ultimately benefit from their travels in Africa. Each of the Travel Journalism students has to answer one question in this article: Why do we travel?

Physical Education

The combination of early morning game drives and a heat wave across the country of Namibia has disrupted our daily workout program. At the Cheetah Conservation Center we had a soccer field we decided to play Ultimate Frisbee on as well as build strength with some plyometric workouts. However, the past couple days, temperature extremes have made it difficult for us to enjoy land-based workouts. Most of the campsites will have a pool, so PE will be focused in the water for the remainder of the semester.

Math Concepts

Math is everywhere. Whether people like math or not we have to use it every day. The past few Math Concepts classes have focused on the economies of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. The girls all gave presentations on these different countries looking at their trade, imports, exports, unemployment and production of the country. From there we moved into the global market and have been talking about the World Trade Organization and globalization and how both play major roles in both society and markets in today’s world. This week we will scale back a bit from global markets and mass production to non-profits in southwest Africa and the pros and cons of how these organizations impact the countries we’ve traveled through this semester.