Eight TEEN DAY fifth-period participants attended the Cornell Model United Nations Conference April 11-14 right in our own backyard. CMUNC is an annual high school model UN conference hosted by the Cornell International Affairs Society (CIAS) at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. CMUNC is a simulation of the United Nations and other international bodies, which allows students to take on the roles of diplomats from around the world.

Model UN seeks to promote awareness of the many issues facing the international community, and to give students the opportunity to engage in critical thinking about how to address those issues. Students or “delegates” must step into the shoes of the country or position they are assigned. Participants research their assigned country, write a country position paper for submission, get to know their particular role/committee, and finally, spend the weekend as a part of a simulated delegation at this international conference!

TEEN DAY delegates, from left to right:
Gina, MUN advisor; Emily, Delegate of Bolivia, Organization of American States (OAS); Naomi, Co-Delegate of Iran, United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ); Riley, Delegate of Hungary, Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC); Lillian, Delegate of Yemen, World Health Organization (WHO); Blake, Delegate of Philippines, United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW); Drew, Delegate of Burkina Faso, African Union; Liam, Co-Delegate of Iran, United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ); Samuel, Delegate of Iran, Economic and Financial Committee (ECOFIN).

TEEN DAY will offer Model UN again in 2019-2020, and we plan to attend CMUNC again in the spring. But this session showed us we may be ready to take on a few more conferences. We’ll keep you posted (or JOIN US next year to see for yourself)!

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The Intro to Programming class is back, and this time with midterm projects! Check out what they were up to over the winter break. Note: The website is sometimes glitchy. Click the green flag on the upper right to reload the project, if needed.

After we found out one of our teen writing teams won the WSKG radio drama contest, we thought it would be fun to record the other groups’ radio dramas, too. So on our last day of class last year, that’s what we did.

Though these aren’t quite as slick sounding as the one that was professionally recorded and produced by WSKG, our teen writers did such a great job creating these stories that we wanted to share them, too.

Take a listen to “An Injection of Madness,” created by Rose, Romneya, Lexi, Allyson, Noah, and Henry.

And “The Experiment” by Emily, Takoda, Kieran, Drew, and Samuel.

Several groups of students from Teen Day’s Writing class entered WSKG’s “An Ear for Drama” radio contest last year. In a post at the end of the academic year last year, we announced that one of the Writing class groups – Torin Knapp, Riley Knapp and Oswald Tay – WON the contest! WSKG 90.9 FM produced the drama over the summer, with several students and siblings of students voicing characters, in addition to some of WSKG’s professional actors.

It was JUST released on the radio this past weekend, and it’s fantastic! Listen for yourselves! https://wskg.org/uncategorized/how-to-win-at-business-student-radio-drama/

For the next few weeks, we will highlight each of our classes to offer a snippet of what is going on at TEEN DAY this year.

An entirely new realm for Teen Day this year, the 2018-2019 offerings include a beginning course on computer programming, led by local tech guru Timothy Weber. The class uses Snap!—a visual, drag-and-drop programming language comprised of a number of pre-written nuggets of code emblazoned on multicolored digital blocks that can be assembled to form coherent lines of instruction.

Check out the code on the right. This is a snapshot of what the pieces of assembled Snap! code look like. The pieces can be assembled in a near-infinite number of ways to produce different results every time. Using the block of code on the right as an example, this code actually creates THIS.

The full title of this class is Intro to Programming: Beauty, Power, and Creative Magic. Instructors select the names for their own courses, knowing far better what they will entail than anyone. But this particular title was pretty mysterious. Computer programming definitely seems practical. It seems marketable. I’d even go so far as to say fun. But beautiful? Creative magic?

However, as the semester wears on, I have become more convinced. The Intro to Programming class submits the following evidence of an aptly named course. You be the judge.

Beauty:

Power:

Creative Magic:

For the next few weeks, we will highlight each of our classes to offer a snippet of what is going on at TEEN DAY this year.

The fall semester of the TEEN DAY Art Block is the Botanical Illustration in Watercolor class. The class is led by world-class botanical illustrator Milly Acharya. Now, I’ll come clean right from the start: I initially categorized this class as an art class. You know, watercolor work with a specific theme in mind. That sounded fantastic, just as it was. What has become clear, however, is that it is also a botanical specimen survey, in equal parts technique and design as scientific study.

The course has focused on observation of natural specimens—scouring them for small details, determining what are the most important features to capture. Participants often observe their specimens through hand lenses (magnifying glasses) to observe the minutia missed by their naked eye. They also keep a sketch book with pencil drawings of things in nature.

Additionally, study has gone into working with the watercolors themselves—mixing colors, achieving the right saturation levels, how to remove paint from the page. Achieving illustrations of such fine detail requires a lot of control over the medium and a lot of pure trial and error. Class participants spend time in class observing new techniques, rehearsing them, and then incorporating them into their own work during class and throughout the week at home.

The Botanical Illustration class has an art exhibit up through the month of November at the Tompkins County Public Library. Find student work in the glass cases at the rear of the library atrium, near the Teen Center and the Ezra Cornell Reading Room. Artwork is available for viewing anytime during regular library hours.

Family, friends and community members are invited to join us Saturday, November 17, 3-4:30pm for an artists’ reception and celebration in the BorgWarner Community Room (East). Meet the artists. Ask questions about the display. Enjoy a snack.

See closeups of all the work in the show HERE.

For the next few weeks, we will highlight each of our classes to offer a snippet of what is going on at TEEN DAY this year.

This year, TEEN DAY is offering a Debate class. The class focuses on formal debating skills and styles, but also argumentation and active listening in the context of discussing controversial topics. And there has been no shortage of controversial subjects used for modelling, discussion, and debate!

Should homeschoolers be allowed to participate in school sports?
Should people eat animals?
Should a nuclear power plant be built near Ithaca, NY?
Should the minimum wage be abolished?

I asked a couple class members what their favorite part of the Debate class has been so far:

“My favorite thing was a game where you had to state why people should save you from a sinking boat.”

“I think my favorite thing was the game where we advertised a random object. That was pretty fun.”

A lot of the focus of the class so far has been in how to form and recognize a good argument with important debate (AND conversational) skills such as:

• Making your point(s) clearly and succinctly.
• Focusing on the most important issue(s).
• Redirecting an opponent’s argument that misses the point.
• Responding to someone’s best argument instead of their worst.

The Cornell Speech and Debate team has a group of enthusiastic and brilliant student volunteers working with the class. They’ve brought their own experiences and skills from the hill to our classroom to help transform our debate enthusiasts into real debaters!

But don’t take my word for it. Check out their very first debate: Should zoos be illegal? (Available here in parts, because it turns out the TEEN DAY administrator does not excel at video editing.) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

All of our classes at TEEN DAY are now well underway. The mild chaos of the first few Tuesdays could even be called a rhythm now. Instructors have settled on a classroom setup. Participants are confident about where they are supposed to be. We are able to focus on the real reason we are all here… the classes! (Ok. And the company.)

For the next few weeks, we will highlight each of our classes to offer a snippet of what is going on at TEEN DAY this year.

One of the classes at TEEN DAY this year is Being a Citizen. This civics-meets American government-meets political science course is as interesting as it is timely. Led by Michael Smith, a professor at Ithaca College and co-editor of the book Citizenship Across the Curriculum, this class really hit the ground running.

The first several weeks of this course have already tackled:

• what government is and why we have it
• various forms of government
• what democracy is and how it works
• Declarations of Independence

We’re all still reeling after an unfortunate incident in week four, when Michael—consumed by a lust for power, autonomy, and the right to assign copious amounts of homework—orchestrated a TEEN DAY coup wherein the TEEN DAY administrator was arrested and carted off to jail (by the Literature instructor no less). It was an embarrassing moment in TEEN DAY history, but one from which I’m sure we’ve all learned something (like don’t ask a budding autocrat to teach a class.)

On a more serious note, the classroom discussion continues to be rich and insightful, and the tone of the course encourages participants to draw their own conclusions. As the midterm elections get closer, the opportunity to see these abstract ideas play themselves out on the national and statewide stages will afford concrete examples of what is being discussed and read about—an opportunity to experience democracy in action!

Tuesday marked the first day of TEEN DAY 2018-2019.

We shuffled 36+ people into our space. We juggled tables and monitors and painting supplies and textbooks. We took math quizzes, discussed dramatic irony, measured chewing gum bubbles, shared facts about the medieval world, and programmed an instructor.

In short, TEEN DAY participants hit the ground running this week! As the weeks unfold, we’ll share some exciting tidbits and images here, so you can see what we’re up to. Looking forward to another great year!

NOTE: A HUGE thank you to the instructors, families, and informal support team that did the heavy lifting to make all of this possible. The fruits of your labor are already evident!