By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

Some Brandywine High School students may be taking it easy this week after returning from a trip to the city that never sleeps.

Brandywine’s history club took its annual summer to trip to New York City, filling two buses full of students, teachers and relatives and from June 18 to June 23, spending their days taking in all the sights.

“I thought New York had a lot to offer,” said Dave Roeder, social studies teacher at Brandywine High School, who started the club in 2007. “Maybe more in culture.”

Since then, Brandywine students have seen the historical significance of cities such as Boston, Philadelphia and the historic Gettysburg and Williamsburg.

In New York, students were able to see where the beginnings of so many Americans started – at Ellis Island.

Among other sights, they visited the Empire State Building, the Museum of Natural History, Times Square and Little Italy.

Roeder also took students to a Broadway production of “Mamma Mia.”

About 71 students attended the trip, 112 in total with adult chaperones.

“I think everyone enjoyed our night tour of New York,” Roeder said.

Another highlight of the trip was a tour of the United Nations building.

Students got a glimpse of Lady Liberty herself.

“Seeing the Statue of Liberty from the ferry,” Roeder said, “I think everyone was impressed with that.”

Also on the tour, students were given a chance to see one of the most recent historical aspects of New York City: Ground Zero.

“I think everyone really thought it was important to see that,” Roeder said.

To attend history club trips, students can either pay for the trips themselves or hold fundraisers to raise money for the costs.

Roeder said organizing the trip is definitely no easy feat.

“You pack a lot of things in a short amount of time,” he said.

But anticipation for the history club’s annual trip is often high and Roeder is already working on plans for next year – St. Louis.