MUN students to attend UC Davis conference

By Michael Todd

Staff Writer

Approximately 20 students in the Mira Costa’s Model United Nations program will attend the 15th annual University of California Davis novice conference on May 20 and 21, in order to complete the debate season for this school year.

This conference will be for novice delegates, which means several students who were picked by the teachers from the Introduction to MUN class will be going as well as some sophomores in the advanced class.

“This conference is a really exciting opportunity for me to work on my debate skills,” sophomore Troy Hampton said. “I have been preparing a lot for this conference and hopefully I will be able to perform well because of it.”

Photos: The Mira Costa Model United Nations program prepares for their upcoming debate by using class time to do research and discuss their topics with classmates. They talked with their partners in the class so that they would be ready when it was their turn to speak during the debate.

This will not be a partner debate, therefore students will have to prepare and research on their own. This will be Costa’s sixth novice conference of the school year.

“We use time inside and outside of class to prepare for the conference,” MUN teacher Robert Timberlake said. “I hold the students accountable for knowing their policies and other things like that.”

Video: This video demonstrates how students in the Model United Nations program simulate their debates. They prepared inside and outside of class so they would be ready for their upcoming debate.

This conference will feature approximately 500 students from California high schools. They will simulate debate by talking about different policies such as immigration reforms, human rights and many other topics, according to the conference’s website.

“We always want to do the things that we know will make us successful,” Timberlake said. “That means simulating UN debate properly and preparing as they would for the conference.”

This will be the last conference of the year for the MUN program for both novice and advanced debates. Costa has attended a total of fifteen conferences this school year.

“I’m really looking forward to next year because I feel like I will have more chances to debate,” Hampton said. “I feel like I debated well this year and I hope to do better next year.”