When I first heard of the opportunity to attend the Great Lakes International Trade and Transport Hub Summit, I was not quite sure what to expect. It sounded like a good learning experience, so I agreed to go. The first day I was a bit confused about some of the information. The only thing that I had learned about Canada in school before the conference, was how it was first settled.
Transportation among goods never crossed my mind as a problem. At the conference, there were some facts that surpised me. For example it takes on average four hours to get across the bridge from Canada into Michigan. This delay makes it almost impossible to get goods transported in a timely matter. 17 of Canada's 20 largest cities are within 90 miles of the border. As a student, I thought that this did not effect me directly, but it does. We are the future and we need to start getting educated about this. We have a major problem with trade between our countries and if they do not get solved now, then it will be left for us to fix.
We need to start educating students about the problems of trade because eventually we will have to fix them on our own. The schools need to start educating their students on Canadian culture. We do not know anything about students in Canada. If you asked every student in DeWitt High School to name a Prime Minister of Canada, probably less than 1% could actually answer the question correctly. But if you ask a student in Canada who the President of the United States is, almost every student will say Barak Obama.
At the conference they set up panels of people to discuss their opinions and sugestions on the problems. The panels were organized around the following areas; business and industry collaboration, workforce, talent and educaution, and marketing and public education. For the most part, I felt that the panels worked very well. It made the problems and solutions very easy to understand. At the end, they made the soultions into a power point and we voted with clickers. It was an honor to be asked to be a part of the voting process.
I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to attend the Great Lakes International Trade and Transport Hub Summit. Everyone was kind and welcomed us with open arms. What I have experienced, I could not have learned from a textbook. This expirence gave me an opportunity to network and make connections with people who could help me with my future. For example I met Mr. Hollister from the Prima Civitas Foundation, Dr. Lynch from Dalhousie University and AnnMarie Schneider from the Canadian Studies Center at Michigan State University. I feel that every student should have the opportunity to attend a conference such as this.
Rachel Heinze (Senior at DeWitt High School)
21st Century Skills:
Financial, Economical, Business and Entrepreneurial Litearcy
Civic Literacy
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Communication and Collaboration
Information Literacy
Media Literacy
Social and Cross-Cultural Skills
Leadership and Responsibility