In March, the students of Étude High School will have an opportunity to do something brand new for the school: Participate in a Model U.N. program with students from all over Wisconsin.
Model U.N. is a series of programs all over the country designed to give students hands-on experience in diplomacy and a unique look at how different nations of the world work together.
Étude students have done Model U.N. activities on their own as part of the Global Scholars Program under the guidance of English teacher Addie Degenhardt, but until now have not participated in a larger event.
It’s valuable on a number of levels, she said.
“We want to give them an academic experience that’s outside of the school,” Degenhardt said. “It’s really important for students to have college-level experiences before going to college and this is one of those opportunities.”
In all, seven students will travel to University of Wisconsin-Madison in March to participate in model UN. To prepare, they are all exploring different aspects of the nation of South Korea and writing position papers and resolutions. They also have to prepare an opening speech for the event.
For their classroom Model U.N., students chose a country to study, then wrote three different compositions from the perspective of their chosen nation: an opening speech on global climate change and the Paris agreement, a position paper on disarmament of non-state actors and a resolution — in collaboration with other students’ chosen countries — on the child starvation crisis in Nigeria.
“We talked about how the U.N. looks at difficult issues through different lenses: security, humanitarian and climate change,” Degenhardt said.
Emilio Kuester, a junior, said the Model U.N. class — which is an interdisciplinary combination of English and social studies — has been a challenge.
“It really pushed me out of what I usually do,” Kuester said. “Speaking in front of a lot of people is terrifying, but I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and see what I can do.”
Koda Siebert, a sophomore, chose Malaysia.
“I like the class a lot,” Siebert said. “I like the writing a lot, I like the research. I didn’t know much about Malaysia to begin with. I have a friend who lives there, so I thought it would be cool to learn about it. Also, I want to go to out-of-school activities and beef up my college application.”
Eventually, the goal is for a team from Étude to attend a very big and well-known Model U.N event in Chicago.
Students participating in the Model U.N. conference include: Siebert, Kuester, Daisy Wilson, Creek Harvey, Charlie Hamm, Kai Mavity Maddalena and Sam Brusky.
