As the date October 7th nears, AP Biology students sift through the backs of their closest looking for the perfect outfit, or at least the perfect outfit to be thrown away. Buses to the annual Wallops Island field trip will leave the school on the first day of homecoming week  bright and early at 6 o’clock in the morning. During the three days student will spend at Wallops Island in Northern Virginia, they will trek through the various unique ecosystems, recording data, and observing organisms, taking home with them not only their new knowledge but also regrettably the permanent stench of those same ecosystems in the threads of their clothes.

Unlike former years, this year the trip is also open to students in the schools new Oceanography class along with the AP BIology students. During this trip, students will be staying in the Marine Science consortium near the naval base, in the new dorm rooms. Over the course of the trip, students will be participating in a number of scheduled activities including a scavenger hunt through the maritime forest, an excursion in the salt marsh, and a trip to an intertidal area where samples will be taken of organisms from the sand and mud. Students will even spend part of the trip out on a boat where they will take measurements of marine water chemistry and catch different organisms by dragging a trolling net behind the boat. These organisms will then be brought back to the lab where they will be identified. This event is AP Biology teacher Sean Blairs favorite part of the trip, “its neat to see the things that we’ve caught  and see them up close in tanks and dishes and things like that.” He also like the actual process of trolling the net to catch the organisms, saying that the experience is “like Christmas morning.”

While the number of teachers going on this trip will vary based on the number of students, Mr. Sean Blair and Mrs. Molly Rippa will definitely be chaperones. If over thirty students sign up Mr. Russell Murphy and Mrs. Cathy Whitlow may be going as well.

However, while this trip is highly anticipated by many students every year, outside factors may keep some students from attending this year, like with junior Dhara Viradia who said,“ I wish I was going but I can’t because I have other classes that I need to focus on too.” Homecoming can also be a factor considering students going on the trip will miss three days of spirit week and other homecoming related activities like marching band practice.While some have been swayed by these factors, others are not bothered in the slightest by the trips date like senior Mary Rose Lundi who said, “even though its homecoming week the only thing I really hope we are not missing is character day.”

Those who do decided to stay home, will have an alternative project that may consist of a number of things ranging from a research paper to an ecology web, and that will incorporate the same ideas that students who are going on the trip will learn. “The idea is not to punish them for not being able to go, far from it,” Mr. Blair comments, “but what I want them to experience as best as possible is to experience the things that students who go on the trip experience.”