Early in the 2018-2019 school year, Grandville High School added a new club, one that is renowned worldwide. Model UN gives high school students the opportunity to work with peers to solve world issues.

“When I’m older I think I want to follow that kind of career path,” said Sandra Lwin, current member of Model UN. Within the club there seems to be a general consensus about why they are all there. Fellow member, Grace Heemstra said “I’m interested in politics and that’s something that I’m considering doing for a career.” Overall, the members are in agreement, Fisher Wojtas said he joined simply because “I like politics.”

One might wonder what Model UN does exactly. Well in the words of Grace Heemstra its “basically planning ahead and knowing issues so we can fix them” and her favorite part is that “it’s our own world so we can all pass all the rules we want to pass.”

Model UN is a great opportunity for all students to learn more about our government and make friendships with peers who have similar interests. Sandra Lwin’s favorite part about competitions is how they “work for hours to pass this pretend bill and once you pass it its like ‘its finally done’.”

While Model United Nations might seem boring and simply just a bunch of politics, there are some interesting aspects to how they accomplish the tasks needed. For instance, Fisher Wojtas loved “killing Winston Churchill” in their last competition, in order to complete the task at hand. But for Mrs. Buchholz, she loves “seeing the students taking on the identity of the country” as well as implementing knowledge that they may have learned in her class, AP Government.

The students within the club put in a lot of work, but Model UN would not be at Grandville if it wasn’t for Mrs. Buchholz, the advisor of this club. She was approached by many students in prior years but never had the time to get it started. However, this year the Model UN advisor of Grand Haven and fellow teacher offered to help Mrs. Buchholz get Model United Nations started at Grandville. “They have a really well established Model UN”, therefore it was helpful to get input and advice from them.

While it may seem plenty fun, hard work is put into preparing for their conferences. At these conferences students are “assigned a country and a problem” and from there  “they have to research where their country would stand on that issued and how they would try to solve [it]”. Model UN has some meetings but Mrs. Buchholz admits that it involves “a lot of individual time” but when they do meet, they usually practice with moderated debates over possible scenarios.

Model United Nations is a great opportunity for high school students to explore the world of politics, work with their peers who have similar interests, and expand their debate skills. Overall, it is an amazing addition to the slew of clubs Grandville High School already offers.