Discovering Eisteddfod: An Appalachian Student’s Exploration in Wales
by Mary Pope A class of students from Appalachian State University traveled to Wales for a summer study abroad program in June of 2013. The Wales study abroad program has been coordinated by the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University since 2001. This summer, students started a project to map historic sites in former mining communities in South Wales. This is the first in a series of three blog posts written by the students about their experience. On one of our group’s first days in Wales, we all piled into our mini- bus to ride down the hill into the village of Ystradgynlais. It was our first exploratory mission to find points of historical and cultural interest to map on TrailMaker, the smartphone application we used to map historic sites in South Wales. Upon arriving in the village, we split into teams of two and set off in all directions. With […]