High school industrial tech club Europe trip

On June 4, 17 students in the Industrial Tech Club at Clarion-Goldfield Dows High School and seven adult leaders left for a 10-day trip where they got to experience travel in Paris, England, and Ireland.

Craig Warnke, the industrial tech teacher at the high school who has led these bi-yearly trips since 2008, said the trips all tie in some way to the classes the students take, whether it’s history, photography, or architecture. Warnke enjoys the architecture aspect himself, but said what the students learn is more than what they can learn in class. “To the students, the experience of the culture is a big asset,” he said. “You realize how different things are.”

Warnke said he’s taken every student group to Paris, and after the terrorist attacks last fall and the flooding the city experienced in June, the city was different. “That’s probably the least crowded Paris I’ve ever seen.”

He also said that the students had a positive attitude, even if things didn’t go quite according to plan. They weren’t able to visit the Louvre because the artwork was being moved to higher floors to avoid exposure to moisture. When they found that Eiffel Tower’s elevators were broken, some of the students talked Warnke into walking up the 704 steps.

For the full story and more photos, see the July 21 edition of the Monitor.