South Carolina Teil III

The school group that is visiting South Carolina currently had the chance, to get a good impression of the United States of America and to learn a lot about sustainability, the theme of this student exchange, in the last two weeks.
We visited the Congaree National Park, the Healthy Carolina Farmers' Market and the Darla Moore Business School for sustainability for example. Our impression of those very different attractions was very good. We learned more about sustainability, especially the meaning of it in the United States and got the chance to see a lot of the American nature in the Congaree National Park. The biodiversity of plants and animals for example is much bigger than in Germany. The importance of renewable energy sources here isn´t as big as it is in Germany, but it started to get more important and many people are starting to think more and more about it.
Our group also visited several German classes at the university of South Carolina, such as the German Club or the Kaffeklatsch. Here we got the chance to discuss various topics with the Americans and learn more about their culture. It was really interesting to get to know a lot of people of this country better and to learn about what connects them to Germany and the German language.
We also saw an American elementary school, in which the kids only spoke German half a day, and noticed a lot of differences to German elementary schools. The system there is very strict and it is very important for the school to teach the kids to follow instructions. But the kids learned also very much at a very young age. We were part of a lesson in the Kindergarden, which is the year before the first class and were very impressed about how good the German of the kids was and what they already learned at a very young age. The school was also very modern. Every kid had an IPad for themselves and electronic media were a big part of the different classes.
After the past two weeks, our group will now soon head back to Germany, knowing a lot more about this different culture and having spent a great time here. It was a very good experience that all of us can recommend to other students.

 Joey Knöfel, 11b