Over the course the Homecoming, people may have noticed people screaming in the lunchroom or eating ice cream with their hand. These strange social occurrences observed throughout the high school were a part of the Sociology course.

The Sociology course here at Pella High School has multiple Sociological experiments throughout the year. The first one of the year was based around breaking social norms, specifically folkways. Folkways are basically anything that a human does out of tradition in order to fit into society, for instance, holding the door open for people or raising your hand in class. The goal of this experiment was breaking one of these folkways. The main reason for these experiments were for students to explore the field of Sociology.

“One of the important components as a social science is the ability to get out in the field and observe society,” said Mark Solomon. “The opportunity to do that especially during homecoming week, I think was really valuable for students to be able to view from a different perspective the things that go on in their lives here at school that they normally don’t think about.”

The experiments in Sociology allow for students to view their own lives through many different lenses. They can also lead to a wide variety of interesting observations. One student, Noah Larson, performed his experiment by yelling in the cafeteria during lunch.

“I was a little nervous because it’s not exactly normal to scream above everyone else in the lunchroom,” Larson said, “but it was really fun to execute.”