For many freshman, taking AP Human Geography has been a challenge, not only because of the curriculum, but also because it can be hard to apply to the students personal life. However, for the unit on culture, teacher Homa Lewis decided to change this.

“I sent out an email to all the parents to give them the opportunity to speak about their culture and have it really connect to the students,” Lewis said.

Parent Anton Mattli is one of those that came and spoke to all the classes about where he grew up and how the cultures are different. Mattli grew up in Switzerland, a country with about the same population as the Dallas-Fort Worth area.   For student’s, Mattli’s talk provided a new perspective.

“I learned a lot about culture and a way of living different from my own,” freshman Zoe Kahana said. “I also learned that every culture is very different but they are also really interesting.”

Not only did students learn from this experience, but many also seemed to like this new approach to learning.

“I enjoyed the guest speaker because he shared interesting information about Switzerland and their culture,” freshman Ellie Hager said. “I think the reason that we have guest speakers is because we should know and be aware of the other cultures around us.”

Students weren’t the only ones that benefited from this presentation as Lewis also learned quite a bit about Switzerland and how different it really is from the Lucas-Fairview area.

“I knew about the military service laws there, but I didn’t know that their education system was set up differently,” Lewis said. “I also didn’t know about the all the languages spoken there.”