9th Grade Visits Michigan's Capital

The day started out early for the CCS 9th graders. We met at school at seven o’clock and loaded the bus for the trip. After about 2 hours, we pulled into the Capital and un-loaded.  We were greeted by a friendly tour guide and he started us on our little journey through the magnificent building.

As we weaved in and out of halls and went up and down staircases, we came to the Senate room. It is very rare to be taken onto the Senate floor because you have to be invited by the Senator. But we got lucky and bumped into Senator Geoff Hansen right by the door of the Senate room. He took us onto the floor and showed us the beautiful room filled with extraordinary masterpieces and carvings. The ceiling made of 50 glass tiles each representing a state was an amazing token to see. The Senator also invited us to watch part of the session they were about to hold. We left the Senate floor and walked to the other wing of the building which was the House of Representatives wing. And as luck would have it, we bumped into one of the representatives and were invited onto the House of Representatives floor. This room was just as amazing and we marveled at the extreme work that had been done. We thanked the representative and headed back to the Senate floor to watch the session.

The best part was sitting in on a meeting where we could see what the people were doing. They voted using special buttons, green for yes, and red/orange for no. Only the representative could push the buttons, otherwise, it would be illegal. At the same desk as the Representative, there was usually a reporter or an assistant. If we looked up at the ceiling, we could see all 50 state flags and right under the Michigan one was the podium where the person in charge would sit. It moved very fast, but it was really fun to watch. Around the voting room, there were various paintings of governors, i.e. Lewis Cass. The Michigan coat of arms was all over the building and the building itself was very intricate and detailed. In the round part of the building there were paintings of all the governors, one was left unfinished because the person it was painted of didn’t want it finished once he was out of office.

The trip wasn’t done after the Capitol building. We headed to the Supreme Court to learn more on that subject. As we entered the building, we all had to go through a metal detector. Mr. Marshall was the only person who had to be scanned twice. We toured a learning center and played a bunch of interesting interactive games that we could play to learn more about the capitol and how it worked. The trip came to a sad close when we left the Supreme Court and headed home. Thanks to Mr. Marshall and Mr. Maine for making the trip such an awesome and fun time!

- Alec Cammenga and Laurie Schreur, Freshmen