Model UN Club Competes at International Conference

Editor's Note: The following news brief was contributed by .

Twenty Lawrence Middle School eighth-graders competed in this year's Model United Nations Conference in New York City on March 23 and 24.

The students were: Louis Augeri, Klara Bienaisz, Caroline Bohra, Jared Bridges, Katy Carpinelli, Zachary Cheng, Sebastian Czerwiski, Kyle Fram, Cole Hindman, Ben Johnson, Vismita Kandasmay, Robert Liu, Chris Managhas, Hannah Poulouszny, Pranav Sabanayagam, Niharika Sahay, Abigail Scardeletti, Abby Smith, Anoop Sypereddi, and Christine Villafuerte.

Model UN is an academic after-school club lead by Social Studies teacher Dan Christel. Students spent several weeks after school with Mr. Christel preparing for the mock delegation that they would represent at the conference by fully researching their assigned country and some of the major issues that affect the nations today.

This year the LMS club represented the countries of Austria and New Zealand in several U.N. committees such as the General Assembly, World Health Organization, and the Historical Security Council.

They had great success in public speaking, debating, negotiating, and writing resolutions to help tackle many global issues facing our world today such as preventing nuclear terrorism, dealing with infectious diseases, ensuring human rights of refugees, and promoting sport for peace and development.

Students competed with other middle school students from all over the world. The international competition proved both exciting and academically challenging for our students.