Thinking on a global scale

Marisa O’Neil

Not every high school student knows what globalization,

macroeconomics and microeconomics mean.

But Newport-Mesa Unified School District students taking part in a

special UC Irvine program, Global Connect, are learning all those

things through the School of Social Sciences. On Friday, about 100

middle and high school students culminated weeks of study at a

symposium held at UCI addressing today’s global economy.

“Globalization shows how the world has come together because of

technology,” 15-year-old Jon Olsen said.

The Global Connect program started nearly two years ago as an

outreach program for students who might not otherwise attend college,

director Ellen Schlosser said. It helps teach advanced social science

concepts to students at a high school level.

“They do get it,” Schlosser said of the curriculum. “We make sure

our information can be consumed by high school students.”

UCI professors and graduate students visit Estancia, Costa Mesa

and Newport Harbor high schools and TeWinkle Middle School throughout

the year and lecture on topics like economics, technology and

immigration. Undergraduate students deliver workshops and assign

exercises that help cement their lessons, graduate student Stephanie

Di Alto said.

“We’re giving them a broad scope of what’s going on in the world

around them,” UCI undergraduate student Jaime Carrillo said.

Program director Caesar Sereseres said that the recent “mad-cow”

scare was a good example of globalization -- a single cow in Canada,

imported to the United States, has created trade issues with

countries like Japan, and has created economic problems.

During Friday’s mock economic summit, students broke into groups

that represented different countries. Each country fell into one of

three categories -- developed, developing and transitional.

Each of them, political science professor James Danziger told

students, had its own issues and priorities. Their job for the day

was to decide what the issues for their countries were.

“We get to learn how our economy differs from other countries,”

15-year-old Erika Corona, in the Ethiopian group, said.

At the end of the day, all groups cited good governance, health

and education as their top priorities.

Once the lessons were finished, the students got a tour of campus

-- which Sereseres hopes they will attend.

“You all have the opportunity to come to UCI if you start

[working] today,” he said.