LEXI WEINGARDT Madi Spillman is the first student at Mountain Vista High School to win the video contest for the Global Student Leadership Program. Global Student Leadership is a new program at MVHS that allows students to take a class for two years and then get high school and college credit for the class.

“We learn about the design thinking process, which is basically a more in depth way to solve problems. It is six steps long and involves prototyping an idea and testing it out with people and making changes to make it the best possible fit,” Spillman said. “The overall theme of the whole summit and the whole experience is to get people thinking more outside the box.”

As well as being able to use the class for high school and college credit, students also get to travel to a different place each year to attend an summit with students from all around the world.

Last summer, Spillman and other Mountain Vista students had the opportunity to go to London, Paris, and Zürich.

“Those were all sightseeing activities and touristy stuff. Then we ended up in Davos, Switzerland for the summit,” Spillman said.

Spillman had the option of turning a project in to Mountain Vista or doing one for EF Tours. She decided to do one for EF Tours. “Basically, what we had to do [for the video] was reflect on the summit a little bit and explain what we learned. We also had to choose our own problem in education. I chose the problem of communication and how people these days are not communicating well. I did a design thinking project on that.”

Next summer, Spillman has an all expense paid trip to the next summit because she won the video contest. “We are going to Prague, Amsterdam, Berlin, and ending in The Hague for the summit about human rights,” Spillman said.