Manuel Lopez of Everett Alvarez goes to China

Government and economics teacher Manuel Lopez spent a month in China this summer studying how fast the country’s still growing and what are the consequences of this growth.
Lopez, a 20 years veteran of education, and 70 other colleagues from northern California went to China on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship, and besides learning about the culture first hand – visiting its museums, archeological sites, and attending lectures – Lopez focused on studying China’s infrastructure and how some of it appears to be detereorating as quickly as it’s built.
He’ll apply the lessons learned to his own classes on globalization.

“I went to some sites where you have older people working with no safety wear, boots, or hard hats. You have 70, 80 year old people working in these different sites” and no regulations, he said. “When you have these people doing these types of jobs, it’s only a matter of time before they have accidents.”