United Nations Day celebrates the anniversary of the UN Charter. UN Day is actually celebrated on October 24th, however, OSC celebrates it on the 5th of October instead. UN Day has been celebrated since 1948, and in 1971, the United Nations General Assembly recommended that the day be observed by Member States as a public holiday. This year’s OSC UN day focused on youth and green technology.
UN day at OSC is celebrated by the following activities:
- A flag parade
- Classroom UN youth awareness presentations
- An international buffet
- An assembly consisting of performances, speeches, and student-created videos
For this year’s UN day, I participated as two roles for the organizing committee. The first one being a presenter during the UN youth awareness presentations. Where I worked with grades 8-10, teaching them about green technology and agriculture.
Green technology can be defined as the application of science to mitigate or reverse the effects of human activity on the environment. Examples being renewable energy, water purification and solid waste management. The main goal of green technology is to be sustainable, meeting the needs of the present without the compromising the ability of future generations to meet needs of their own. We specifically explored the theme of green technology because we believed that it is essential for the OSC community to know about its effects and at the same time play our part in helping the planet become sustainable. We focused on the three specific solutions to the problem of green technology with regards to agriculture, which were: GMOs, Smart Greenhouses and Drone-use. Our final activity for the group was to brainstorm and create their very own Smart Greenhouse for here at OSC. During the presentations, I found that my partner and I worked well together and from the posters of the Smart Greenhouse, could tell that my group had taken something away from the classroom session.
Our complete presentation is attached below
Grades 8,9,10 – UN DAY 2018 Presentations
The other role I did was being the master of ceremony for the closing assembly. Here, I worked with Thisath from grade 7. We had practiced for the assembly numerous times prior to the final performance, however Ms. Jasmine had made a few final adjustments, so the script was unfamiliar to me. However, I had to work with what I had and stayed calm and in control of the assembly. I found that there were moments of stutter and stumbling with words every once in a while, however the overall experience was a success and I was very proud of myself and Thisath.
This UN day, 3 learning outcomes I felt I had accomplished successfully were:
- I undertook new challenges by being the MC of the assembly, which was an experience I had never done before and was completely new to. It was a very fun challenge and hopefully will be able to do it again.
- Planned and initiated activities: I had to plan out and prepare the classroom activities and create the presentations weeks prior to UN Day, and additionally, had to write out a script for MC.
- Worked collaboratively with others: I had to collaborate with the students in my classroom session and work with them when brainstorming ideas and reflecting. Along with this, I also had to interact with my audience when being MC.
A recap video made by GeckoNetwork summing up UN Day is in the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmK6MD1kycY