Clubs and activities

Mock MUN Comes to HHIHS

Written by: Megan

Students in the Model UN Club, who have been preparing since late August, will have their Model UN Mock Competition on December 3rd. It will be held in the Hilton Head Island High School aux gym. Schools that are participating include Bluffton, Beaufort, and May River.

Last year, Hilton Head Island High School ranked #35 in the southeast region of the United States. Currently, this school is the reigning Beaufort County Champions. The competition, on January 13-14, decides whether or not they keep that title. Overall, they hope to place in the top 3 at Georgia Southern and the top 2 at Winthrop.

Ms. Spisz, an English teacher who is in charge of the club, describes what this club is about, saying, “Model UN is a club where students act as delegates from different countries. Delegates research their country, their country’s stances on topics, write resolutions to solve global problems, and go to conferences to debate those topics against other schools.” She goes on to explain what material they focus on, “Model UN focuses on foreign relations and foreign affairs.” Out of the two conferences held, the information discussed could talk about climate change, protection of Cultural Property, the threat of nuclear weapons, etc. Though, the assembly includes many small councils that may bring different topics into the debate.

In hopes of including more students, Ms. Spisz says, “Currently 16 students from HHIHS will be competing but I am looking for two more students to make it a total of 18 students from HHIHS. These students are 9th-12th graders.”

After the mock competition on December 3rd, there will be a Beaufort County Conference taking place on January 13-14th virtually. Though there is an even more important conference, Ms. Spisz goes on to say, “Our big conference will be at Georgia Southern University January 27-29th. HHIHS, MRHS, and Beaufort are uniting as one large delegation titled Beaufort County Schools to hopefully defeat Glynn Academy and Porter-Gaud Academy! We might be competing at Winthrop March 30-April 1st.”

The Model UN club will be working very hard on deciding what extra topics to bring into the debate. If anyone has any questions about the upcoming competitions, please see Ms. Spisz. Also, remember to cheer on these Seahawk students!

Women's Engineering Club

By: Alyssa Spurling

The Society of Women's Engineers Club was started this year by Elsy Moreno; Dr. Gray is the faculty sponsor. They want to show young girls that this too is an option for the future, and empower those girls to do anything. They affiliate with the Society of Women's Engineering organization, which is the world's largest advocate and catalyst for women in engineering and technology.

Q:Why did you start theThe Society of Women's Engineer Club ?

Dr. Gray: "Elsy Moreno came to me and asked if she could have me as a faculty sponsor, to get the Society of Women Engineers up and running as a club in the building. Elsy gets all the credit, she has done all the leg work, she did the research, talked to administration about starting the club, and said that I would be the faculty sponsor. So all of the club information came from Elsy, I just volunteered because she is one of my strong math students, and I wanted to support women engineers."

Q:What do you work on in the club?

Dr. Gray: "We have a few goals, first, we try to work on things that will promote the thinking that goes behind engineering. Second, we want to support younger kids, so we want to get middle school students, especially girls in middle school, to think that engineering is a possibility for them. Our goal is to reach out to the middle school, work at the high school, and keep promoting engineering as a great field for females."

Q:What are the goals for this year for the club?

Dr. Gray: "We are starting off kind of small, because we are a brand new club, so we are building interest in the high school, and getting more people. We also are trying to get in contact with the middle school, so that we can get more girls involved. Those are our two big goals for this year, to get everything started."

Q:Anything else you would like to add?

Dr. Gray: "If anybody is interested, contact Elsy Moreno. "

Q:How do you know this club is for you?

Dr. Gray: "If you have an interest in math and science, those are the two big fields that feed into engineering jobs, so if you are thinking that may be what you are really good at, then I would suggest coming and taking a look at what we are doing. Even if you don't think you are good at math, it is more of a different thought process, or a different way to look at a problem. You don't have to be an expert in anything yet, we just want to build your intuition on how to handle problems and how to solve them."

Unifying All: Project Unify

By: Caleb Bison, Lola Gallagher, and Stella Piccioli

Mrs. Robinson is the club advisor of Project Unify. Project Unify is an education and sports based program designed to build an inclusive environment among youth with and without disabilities, as well as empower them to become youth leaders and for a change in the community.

The club meets once a month. The members of the club try to interact with the students with different abilities in and out of school. They might have lunch with them or compete in the Special Olympics. March is autism month, so the students in the special education classes are able to dress up for the week to get everyone involved in Special Olympics and Project Unify. SC Inclusive Special Olympic program includes, youth athletic programs, unified sports, and unified recreation.

Overall, this program does its best "to bring students with and without intellectual disabilities together through education, sports, and youth leadership to provide them with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to create and sustain school communities that promote acceptance."

Bookworms Take Shelfies: Book Club

By: Brody Cooke

Hilton Head Island High School has a book club. The book club meets once a month during all three lunch periods. The exact date of the meeting varies, but they do meet once a month. Students can join the book club by coming into the media center and requesting the google classroom code so that they can join. In the book club, a different book is selected every month and everyone reads that book. Then, during their next meeting, they discuss the book; they talk about what happened in the book, what they liked, what they didn’t etc. If you enjoy reading books and talking about them with others, I recommend that you join the book club.

Mock MUN at hhihs

Photos by: Ms. SPisz

Project Unify

Photos by: Project Unify