Xintong Si ('26)
The Lawrence High School Model UN team is back and in full swing! Led by Mr. Christel, a seventh grade social studies teacher from Lawrence Middle School, the Model UN club is up and running again.
Model United Nations, or Model UN, is an academic simulation involving debate and public speaking, where students are assigned a country and a world issue to make resolutions for. The simulation part takes place in conferences that are held around the world and loosely follow the procedures of an actual United Nations conference, lasting around one to four days. All the actions, issues, and solutions in Model UN are based on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDG).
During regular club meetings, there have been mock debates and time for students to get a feel of conference procedure and structure. However, they are expected to research their topic and country thoroughly by themselves or with a partner. In fact, most conferences will require partnerships, and both partners are responsible for having full knowledge of their topic.
During the conferences, the students would act like delegates from their assigned country and provide input on how their assigned country’s delegate would respond. There are times where students will have to make speeches on a sub-topic of the overall issue in a certain amount of time and others where they will discuss the topic in groups with other students. Each day of the conference will usually last six hours.
The Lawrence High School Model UN team will be attending the April 27-29th conference in New York this year, which will be the first in-person conference we have attended since 2019.
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