Iceland trip
Iceland Visit 2008 – Press Release
A year ago students at Settle College had the opportunity to sign up for a visit to Iceland. We paired up with All Saints Catholic High School from Kirkby, Liverpool, which is my previous place of employment. This visit was to be slightly different from other school visits as the students were to raise a portion of the cost and they were to share their experiences with our College and community on their return. The aim of the visit was to enrich the students socially through interaction with the Liverpool school and deepen their understanding of environmental issues. Ten enthusiastic and committed students signed up, they were to join 15 students from Liverpool in their adventure to Iceland. Setting off on the 17th March the group was excited and exhausted from their year of build up to the visit. We arrived at the youth hostel in Rekjavik after a 2 ½ hour flight and a one hour bus journey, exhausted we crawled into bed wondering what Iceland would look like in the day. The scenery was amazing, snow capped mountains appeared out of a flat barren landscape. Some of the landscape features made it easy to recognize why the Icelandic people had tales of trolls, it was harsh and unforgiving. We toured the Golden Circle visiting the famous sites of Gull Foss, Geysir and Thingvellir National Park where the first parliament in the world was held. We saw the plate boundaries between the North American and Eurasian plates and traveled across them. We spent our evenings in a geothermal swimming pool (one of many in Iceland) jumping from hot tub to hot tub. The students experienced the inside of a glacier, walking on lava fields, crater walking on an active volcano and entering a waterfall of glacial melt water. Many of the landscapes seen were similar to those of the moon, in fact the astronauts had trained in Iceland for the moon landing. Iceland is one of the youngest countries in the world with a similarly young human history, visiting there and experiencing the landscape and the people made us feel part of it. Iceland is an evolving country where the effects of our actions can be clearly seen through the retreating glaciers and the unusually mild weather. In the era of environmental responsibility it has been an important lesson for some of our young people to see the effects of global warming first hand and to experience the Earth as it may have been many thousands of years ago. I hope to make this a yearly adventure for the students of Settle College, thanks to the help and support of our local community we had a fantastic time and the students have had a once in a life time visit.
