Dalton News

MS Students Take Part in Climate-Focused Debate and Policy Fair

As part of Dalton’s climate initiative, 4th-6th grade students participated in a Policy Fair where they learned about a policy that could reduce the School’s carbon emissions, while 7th-8th grade students conducted a public debate on the impact of an environmentally-harmful company.
Following their Policy Fair, the 4th-6th graders interviewed Dalton staff members in policy-relevant departments to learn about the challenges involved and steps needed to enact a proposal. 

Finally, House advisors moderated class discussions on implementing proposals and the best ways to overcome potential challenges. 

Proposals by Grade
4th Grade : Looked at reducing the amount of meat served by the Dalton cafeteria, and spoke with Food Services Coordinator Bobby Dziekonski.

5th Grade: Looked at reducing the number of flyaway student trips and spoke with Director of Finance Marsha Yuan and Director of Community and Global Partnerships and Interim Director of DEI Yom Fox.

6th Grade: Looked at Dalton buying carbon offsets and spoke with Assistant Head of School for Operations & CFO Michael Hwang, Director of Facilities Mike Mezo, and Chief Building Engineer Slawek Szczepankowski.

Seventh and Eighth graders each participated in a public debate on the topic, “If you are working for a company that is harming the environment, is it better to quit, or to stay and work from change within?” 

The Middle School Debate Team, which has won championships in all three of their tournaments this year, conducted the debates and also polled the audience on the question both before and after.

Eighth grader Zeran Li '26 delivered a seminal line in the debate stating, “The world runs on money, power, and greed; climate change was caused by money, power, and greed."

Overall, the team argued that it is better to stay at the company (Sam Kaplan '26, Shreya Ranjan '26, and Annika Maduraperuma '26) and pointed out how big companies like Amazon have historically ignored consumer action but been vulnerable to pressure from strikes, while the side arguing for quitting (Austin Gordon '26, Campbell Langdon '26, and Zeran Li '26) argued that most employees are expendable, but if you quit you can go work for one of the many companies that specialize in green energy.

Great job by all of our Middle School students for participating in this engaging assignment!
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