MKA students win the New Jersey 11th Annual Chinese Cultural Project Contest!
On Saturday, April 22 Upper School Chinese teacher Dr. River He led a group of students to the Seton Hall University and gave the final presentation in the New Jersey 11th Annual Chinese Cultural Project Contest, co-hosted by the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Seton Hall University and the New Jersey Chinese Studies Foundation. Our MKA team won the championship, earning a trophy, a certificate and a grant award of $1,000.
This year's research topic is "How American and Chinese traditions and cultures influence our values and behaviors". In the past three months, MKA Chinese students Jephtane Sabin, Taylor LeFevre, Julia Thompson, Grant Gonsalves, Lannea Martinez, Chyna Brodie and Julia Hansen worked on collecting materials, designed surveys, conducting interviews and writing research paper. MKA team received 193 survey responses and conducted 33 interviews from our community! After two rounds of selection from a pool of thirties schools, MKA got into the final round with other four public schools. In the fifteen-minute final presentation, MKA team delivered a formal research presentation, performed traditional Chinese talk shows and "Step-Fan" dance then answered questions from the Head Judge, Prof. Richard Simmons of Rutgers University. All the judges highly praised the MKA team for its understanding and insight into Chinese culture research, its strong proficiency in Chinese and its efforts to present the project in a fun and exciting way.
Dr. River He stated proudly: "This state champion is a tremendous success for our young Chinese program. As we know, it is challenging for our non-heritage Chinese students to compete and win at this competition in which most of the participants are from Chinese families, or from bigger Chinese program of public schools. I appreciate how much the students put into this, and I am so thankful to MKA faculty, students and parents who support us on surveys and interviews and encourage us to work harder. I give my special thanks to Ms. Fangzhou Zhang who gave valuable suggestions and went on site to support us. This a team success for MKA students, teachers and parents."