Oakdale’s Sociology teacher Teresa Kenney had her students assemble a Culture fest that represented facts, foods, and social norms about various countries. The event was held in room B200, also known as Bear Den.

Senior Jim Ritt, a student taking Sociology, discussed that the idea of Culture Fest was to share how different cultures have different norms and a different way of doing things. “It relates to how sharing culture can help expand our knowledge of the world,” Ritt stated on how the Culture Fest tied in with the class.

For the Culture Fest, Ritt chose Russia because that is where he’s from. He used sources from Britannica and Library Sources to help learn information.

He provides insight to how the Culture Fest was set up. “We had to move tables around to make up a line in a circle so students could freely move around to each table back to the entrance and we had to make sure the space was open enough for the students,” Ritt explained. 

Annabelle Guss, a junior taking Sociology, chose the Netherlands because that’s where her  family is from, and she was able to use sources like Britannica and Google to help learn information. 

Sociology class includes research and experiments to gain a better understanding, and the class just recently covered the cultural unit, which included the Culture Fest. Guss gives insight to what the class is all about: “The class is all about studying how people interact with each other and people’s interaction with society”. It revolves around studying how those interactions can have an influence on you and shape your behavior.

Through the research and experiments, Guss has been able to come up with conclusions that all countries are connected, there are various family values and social norms in countries, and has come to recognize the fact that “we are all different”. She mentions that during her research for the Culture Fest, the class had to search up the different symbols and values of countries and she was able to find differences and similarities between her family and other families around the world. Guss found out that there were more similarities than differences.

 Overall, if you enjoy or are interested in studying human interactions and learning to find similarities and differences between different cultures and groups of society, Sociology might be the class for you!