EAST LANSING — Last Saturday, 21 Eastside Connections sixth, seventh and eighth grade students traveled to Michigan State University to participate in a daylong Model United Nations Conference for middle-schoolers.
More than 300 students from 17 middle schools around the state participated.
Model United Nations is a student simulation of the real United Nations, available for middle school, high school and college students around the world.
As part of the Model UN club, ECS students learned parliamentary debate procedure, improved their public speaking and debate skills and conducted critical research and drafted position papers.
At the MSU conference, ECS students engaged in diplomacy and provided their own solutions and built coalitions to global crisis.
ECS principal Joe Racht commended students for a job well done.
“We are proud of the ECS Model UN team for their resilience in learning complex global issues and strengthening their leadership and collaboration skills,” Racht said. “The Michigan State University conference was an accumulation of many months of hard work and our students shined.”
Sixth-grader Johnny Muday said he enjoyed the experience.
“Participating in Model UN helped push me out of my comfort zone to learn new things and work with other kids I had never met,” Muday said.
“Being on the Model UN team really helped improve my public speaking, leadership and debate skills,” said ECS eighth grader Marlie Holloway.
At the MSU conference, ECS students were challenged to present their own solutions to global crisis issues and then build coalitions for their plans with other students from around the state. Each student was assigned a different research topic such as how to prevent global warming, how to address worldwide water shortages, the impact of standardized school testing, how to rebuild Detroit, the crisis in Ukraine and a futuristic crisis of how to sustain life on Mars.
“I really liked working with my teammates to build support for our ideas and developing my leadership skills,” said seventh grader Stuart Lundberg.
“I thought the Michigan State students who ran the conference really did a great job making sure we learned a lot and had fun,” said sixth grader Andrew Jackson.
Three ECS team members received awards at the conference for their performance. ECS sixth-grader Samuel Kauffmann was commended for his role in the World Health Organization Committee. Sixth grader Mattigan Riggenbach won “Outstanding Delegate” in the George Washington’s cabinet committee. Seventh grader Stuart Lundberg won “Outstanding Delegate” in the United Nation’s Initiative Children’s Fund Committee.
Felicity Dalvia, the chief organizer of the MSU conference said, “The purpose of hosting such a large scale conference for middle school students is to ensure each child can be given the opportunity to engage in global issues.”
“I liked that we got to talk to and debate with people from other schools in Michigan,” said seventh grader Brandon Kosten. “I learned that we are all similar in some ways and can work well together to solve problems.”
Over the course of six months, ECS students worked with members of the Michigan State University Model U.N. program, members of the Niles Library staff and ECS teachers and parents to prepare for the event.