Upper School students attend GatorMUN Conference
On Friday, January 20, eleven students attended GatorMUN, Florida’s largest student-run Model United Nations Conference with Social Studies teacher Mr. Panuthos and English teacher Mrs. Reilly.
The conference provides a learning experience unlike any other in that it breaks from the traditional classroom setting to transform high school students into experts on pressing international issues. For the weekend, students became delegates in important international forums addressing complex global issues such as preventing the spread of diseases, defending human rights, and upholding justice in the international system. Unlike traditional Model United Nations conferences, GatorMUN focuses on offering specialized committees within the UN system allowing delegates to experience committees not always offered at Model United Nations conferences.
The following students were selected to attend:
- Bianca DeSilva
- George Hamilton
- Ruiqi Liu
- Dominic Mazzone
- Vlad McMahan
- Tien Nguyen
- Sam Nolen
- Kyndal Olander
- Fernando Robalino
- Evan Schlifstein
- Joy Wang
GatorMUN XIV also offered crisis simulation. “Crises encourage delegates to use their problem-solving skills to apply their previous knowledge to new situations, ensuring that the debate never gets stagnant,” said the website www.gatormun.org. “In these committees, delegates will prepare to debate a specific issue, but they should expect to receive and act upon new information as the conference progresses. As in the real world, each decision they make will have consequences, and the committee will have to respond to whatever new situations they create. Furthermore, in the more traditional Assembly Committees, the directors will be prepared to introduce a crisis situation if they feel it will help foster more debate in their committees. This option, which received outstanding reviews as an impromptu idea at GatorMUN VI and was formally introduced at GatorMUN VII, will ensure that each committee challenges its delegates to be constantly collaborating on solutions to the world’s problems.”