Making her case

With desks pushed together to form a temporary courtroom, freshman Nicole MacDonald raises her voice so it carries across the classroom and practices her testimony for Mock Trial’s competition, which took place on Feb. 21.

“I decided I wanted to be a lawyer around fifth grade,” MacDonald said. “One day I started looking into [law] and discovered I really liked learning about it, and I wanted to keep doing it in the future.”

Mock Trial is a club that simulates the operation of a real-life courtroom. Students are each assigned different roles, and rehearse for a case that they receive. Each school has 12 roles in a case: three plaintiff or prosecuting attorneys, three defense attorneys, three plaintiff-side witnesses and three defense witnesses. Students are assigned points depending on how believable and accurate witness cases are.

“This year, I’m a witness for the plaintiff side in the case, so I have to memorize information about my character as if it was a real trial proceeding, and act like I’m a witness in a case,” MacDonald said. “The case is between an auto repair shop owner and an influencer suing each other for lying to the press. It’s been really interesting learning about the case and preparing for the competition.”

The club is only open to high school students. As the only freshman on the team, MacDonald said she had to overcome barriers to become comfortable and communicate efficiently.

“It was kind of strange at first, considering most of the club is upperclassmen, but once I got to know the club and know everyone more, I saw they were really nice and I enjoyed participating a lot more,” MacDonald said. “It’s cool to see kids around my age that really know what they’re doing and are confident in themselves. It really inspires me to improve.”

Plugged in

Today, consuming online media has become second nature. When sophomore Talia Woods began feeling trapped in the online world herself, she decided to take a step back and investigate why this was happening.

Woods has been involved in the HOSA-Future Health Professionals club for two years. The club competed at the Space Coast Regional Conference on Jan. 24 at Pine Ridge High School.

“Every year for students in HOSA, we choose our own category for competition; you can either choose a testing, group or demonstrative event,” Woods said. “This year I’m competing with two of my friends in the Health Education category, and we’re working together to inform students about phone addictions.”

This project aligns with Wood’s future career goals, and she said this made preparation more enjoyable.

“I want to be a psychiatrist in the future, so projects like this really interest me,” Woods said. “Last year, I competed in a testing event [about behavioral health], and I did not do well. This project has much more impact than what I did last year, so I focused a lot on this project.”

In this category, students are required to create a project portfolio encompassing the learning materials they utilized. Then, they have to present and be assessed in front of judges.

“We had to create presentations and teaching material for students, which just included things like surveys, pre-assessments and activities,” Woods said. “One day, we met at a restaurant and were working for three hours straight. It’s been a lot more work than I anticipated, but it’s been a lot of fun.”

Despite her passion for this project, Woods said that developing a foundation for her project has been challenging.

“There’s been less information online than we thought,” Woods said. “We’re required to research and write a paper with data, but so many sources are redundant. I had to really dive deep and find out more.”

While the group originally planned to present to seventh-grade students, they realized that teaching older students would be more relevant.

“It’s good that we’re presenting to an older age bracket,” Woods said. “Many of these people have had phones for a long time, and most have social media. When you get older, social media can be really addictive and makes it easy to become sidetracked. Students will really benefit from learning about phone addictions, and it’ll make them more aware of what they’re doing online.”

Passing it on

Six years after deciding to join Future Problem Solvers (FPS), senior Emily Marshall enters her final competition season as both a competitor and a student coach.

FPS is an organization that hosts multiple events throughout the year, focused on solving hypothetical problems of the future. This year, Marshall is competing in the scenario writing and team booklet competition, which both focus on detecting problems from a futuristic scenario and implementing solutions.

“I decided to join FPS in sixth grade because a lot of my friends were in the gifted program and also did FPS,” Marshall said. “I decided to keep doing FPS in seventh grade and onward because I found out that a lot of my friends that I made during COVID also did FPS. It was a nice way to actually make friends and bond with people when we couldn’t see each other’s faces.”

Marshall also coaches students in lower grades, teaching them how to properly compete in the team booklet category. The booklet

is a document made up of six steps, completed within a two-hour period to solve problems from a future scene.

“[Being a student coach] has been wild, especially with having such different groups of kids each year,” Marshall said. “It’s really stretched my ability to try and teach people things.”

Her experience in competitions has not only shaped how she competes, but why she continues to return every year.

“I went to internationals in 10th grade with two of my best friends, and I had the most fun I’ve ever had doing FPS,” Marshall said. “I always tell the kids [I coach] that FPS is fun, but I didn’t realize it can really be that fun.”

While the team did not place in the international competition, the experience left a lasting impression on Marshall.

“We were really happy to compete considering getting to internationals is really hard,” Marshall said. “Our team was great and we had a lot of fun competing, and that genuinely motivated me to keep going and try harder in junior and senior year.”

As she prepares for her final season, Marshall said her experience as a student coach has made balancing leadership and preparation more manageable.

“A lot of the stuff I teach as a coach transfers into my competition, so preparing is pretty easy,” Marshall said. “It only takes maybe two or three weeks of meeting with my team for us to be pretty solid in our abilities, especially since most of us are coaches. A lot of the things I’m teaching the younger kids are things I would tell myself as advice.”

Despite scheduling challenges this year, Marshall’s team remains committed to preparing for competition.

“Two of my teammates do dual enrollment seventh period, and FPS meetings are right after school,” Marshall said. “Getting them to meetings is a little [difficult], but we always make time to practice, whether it be over call or going to one of their houses. It’s definitely been challenging this year because of their schedules, but we make it work.”

Cookies for a cause

One Sunday afternoon, junior Kaynam Nezzamondini-Kachouie’s house filled with the aroma of Biscoff desserts. However, the treats were not for his enjoyment; they had a purpose.

As a member of Mindcare Medics, a club centered around geriatric health, or the health of older individuals, Nezzamondini-
Kachouie helped organize a bake sale to raise funds for elderly patients. The club works to increase awareness about cognitive disorders and volunteers with Health First at their Memory Disorder clinic.

“I decided to join Mindcare Medics because I’m interested in the medical field and I want to help our community,” Nezzamondini- Kachouie said. “When I volunteered at the hospital, I wasn’t able to interact much with geriatric patients, so I thought this would be a good way to help.”

Nezzamondini-Kachouie supported the bake sale by baking Biscoff brownies, as well as promoting the event through school news,
posters and social media announcements.

“I was elected as recruitment officer, which is one of the bigger roles of the club,” Nezzamondini- Kachouie said. “Even though this event wasn’t focused on getting new members, I still really wanted to help. By raising money for local organizations, we’re helping support their patients and work for their causes.”

The bake sale was organized starting in early December, and all proceeds went to two organizations: Aging Matters and Meals on Wheels.

“We wanted to donate to Aging Matters because it is a nonprofit that supports the independence, health, safety and quality of life for senior citizens,” Nezzamondini- Kachouie said. “We also chose to donate to Meals on Wheels because it delivers well-balanced home-cooked meals to homebound seniors.”

All bake sale items were under five dollars, and the club was able to raise $150.

“For one of our first fundraisers, it was successful, and everyone in the club is very happy with how much we raised,” Nezzamondini-Kachouie said. “This money will definitely support the organizations, which was what we were aiming for.”