Iowa Youth Symposium
The Iowa Youth Symposium is a conference hosted by Iowa high school advisors for Model UN at the Capitol building in Des Moines each October. This conference focuses on the creation of a position paper and writing of formal resolutions for topics related to issues faced by the United Nations. Schools represent the United States' point of view for this symposium.
The Iowa Youth Symposium was held on October 23 and 24th at the State Capitol building in Des Moines. The first day was the preplenary session which consisted of all outstanding delegates from all of the regional Model UN meetings across Iowa attending. North Butler sent 6 students this year. Owen Almelien and Dawson Clark in Economics, Mason Ford in Politics, and Nadia Treichel in the Social committee. Alternates were JT Watson in the Science committee and David Crow in the Politics committee. The day consisted of hammering out a position paper to decide what the United States policy should be in the four different categories.
The day will begin with recognition of the Outstanding Delegates from the pre-plenary session and a keynote address by the Honorary Iowa UN Day Chair. The keynote address was given by Rei Tang is program officer for climate change at the Stanley Foundation, where he oversees the team’s work to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by advancing international policy and cooperation.
Following the opening ceremony, delegates split into committees to compose formal UN resolutions on the four topics.
The day ends with a closing ceremony at which the Outstanding Delegates summarize their committees’ resolutions