On Saturday, January 12 Corona del Mar’s (CdM) Speech and Debate Club went to Edison High School to participate in a Model United Nations (MUN). MUN is where students take the role of United Nations (UN) delegates and participate in debates similar to UN debates. CdM competed against many other schools.

Each school was assigned a country or two, depending on the number of people. CdM was assigned Mexico and Poland, but most of the students were assigned Poland. The students got to have a partner and each pair was assigned an issue to research. They had to find their countries view on the topic and then write a paper on it.

In their policy paper, each pair had to write the background of the issue, the previous United Nations actions, and the country’s policy and solutions. Each paper was about 5 pages and each pair was graded on it which added to their final score.

The MUN conference started at about 9 AM. In the beginning everyone went around and gave a 3 minute speech about their solution for the issue.  At the end of their speech, the other countries had a chance to give 2 comments about their solution.

By the end of speeches, each country had to team up with other countries and create a resolution paper. When all the teams were done with their papers, one third of the team members had to give a speech on it and the other teams asked questions about their policies. After all the speeches, everyone moved into a voting block where students got to vote for, against, or to not vote on the resolution. At the end of the voting block, the MUN conference has ended.

At the end of the day, the award ceremony occurs. CdM’s Speech and Debate team ended up getting 2 awards. After, a bus took the Speech and Debate team back to CdM after a long day.