In July 1965, 140 AFS Participants visited the Bell Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair during their summer bus trip. The New York World’s Fair was held at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York, and had opened the previous year. The students learned about the Telestar communications satellite and took a tour of the Bell System Exhibition. The tour included a moving chair ride through “The Story of Communications,” where they saw displays depicting communications of the past, present, and future.
The image above shows Phanee Sopitphongstorn of Thailand, Marcelle Banuett of Costa Rica, and Cecilia Sosa of Ecuador learning the differences between natural and man-made quartz crystals during their visit to the Bell System Exhibition. They are standing with Exhibit Hostess Carol Mahnke, who is holding a man-made crystal and showing them the many fracture lines in the natural quartz below. The students also learned how quartz was used in modern communications equipment at the time.