Juniors and seniors throughout Parker are about to begin their independent studies for the upcoming semester. Whether it is a study with the purpose of wowing an audience at an MX or to take part in a conference bigger than oneself, all independent studies have a way of touching the Parker community.

Seniors Bea Turner and Hans Burlin chose to do science independent studies. They start their research once the school year begins, and present it in some way at the end of the semester. Other students, like junior Lindsay Carlin and senior Galia Newberger, chose to do FWPMUN––a conference is run by Parker and held February 2. “We put together a conference for local schools in Chicago,” Director General for FWPMUN Galia Newberger said.

The difference between the Model UN club that is held at Parker, and FWPMUN is that the Model UN team travels around the Chicagoland area, attending different conferences held by local schools, while FWPMUN’s aim is to run one of those conferences at Parker.

“FWPMUN is strictly administrative for the actual conference,” Newberger said. “It’s a committee whose job is planning the conference whereas Model UN’s job is training and putting together a team for local conferences and travelling abroad.”

Head of FWPMUN, or as her title states: “Secretary General,” Carlin oversees all work being done in preparation for the conference. In essence, she makes sure everything runs smoothly. “The independent study part of it is a way to give students credit for all the work they put into the conference for the entire first semester,” Carlin said.

Newberger is Carlin’s second in command, meaning she’s there to make sure the head chairs know what they’re doing, and that the parliamentary procedure is top notch. There are students who run individual committees for the conference, and there are people who make sure the website is put together, photos are up, and the rooms are available. “I’m there to ensure all the kids on the team are doing their job,” Faculty Sponsor and Upper School history teacher Andrew Bigelow said, “and to to provide the guidance and support they need. But they run it themselves.”

When the school year starts, meetings will be held every Tuesday in Bigelow’s room at U-lunch, though most of the work gets done outside of the meeting. “FWPMUN ended after last year’s conference,” Newberger said speaking of the dedication of the team, “and we picked back up to start for next year.”

Senior Sammy Kagan sent out an application after the conference last year for the two top positions in the conference: Secretary General and Director General. It was sent to the secretariat and head chairs from last year’s conference. “I applied for both positions expecting to get Director General,” Carlin said. “So I was pretty surprised when I got Secretary General. I’m really happy and excited to see where this goes.”

According to Carlin, the conference went well last year, but there were certain aspects that could be changed for the coming year. They held open dialogue about components they felt weren’t right. “The main change for this year is how we train the head chairs because we want to make sure they’re more prepared for the conference,” Carlin said. “Some of them felt a little underprepared last year due to a lack of attendance at meetings, but Galia and I are going to work together to brainstorm and approach how we can redesign that.”

Last year, Carlin was the chair for a committee that discussed the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. They discussed alternative development and passed a resolution.“In my committee, everyone spoke at least once which is great,” Carlin said. “You don’t see that too often.”

This year they are hoping to expand, going from eight committees to nine. “Now I think it will be even better and stronger because the kids have been through it once before,” Bigelow said. “They couldn’t be more excited to do it again. They’re really pumped about creating a tradition.”

Not all independent studies take as much preparation as FWPMUN: like Bea Turner’s study on climate change. Starting this fall, Turner will be studying climate change and the effects it’s had on our planet as well as on Chicago.

“I’ll be studying different mediums like scientific essays, articles, also timelapse videos,” Turner said.

Climate change is not all that new to Turner, who had a unit in science class last year on the topic taught by Upper School science teacher Elizabeth Druger. “I’ve always been aware of this topic of study,” Turner said. “It’s not something that’s completely new to me, but it is something that I haven’t gone in depth about it.”

Coincidently, Druger is Turner’s faculty sponsor for the study, and Turner reached out to Druger to talk about how she wanted to present her research. “On my proposal I did say that I could do an MX or a teach-in,” Turner said. “But we are still talking about it because I think there are other cool ways of presenting it.”

Another student who will be doing a science independent study is Hans Burlin. He will be analyzing the creation stories of various religions and comparing them to the scientific explanations.

Burlin read the novel “The DaVinci Code” which sparked his interest in religion. Burlin said, “A lot of it had to do with the symbolism of religion.” He had a lot of discussions with his friends about the book and later carried on discussions of religion with other students throughout Parker.

After talking to various students, Burlin found religion was very different from student to student. “Religion is very widely spread at Parker,” Burlin said. “I was able to talk to a bunch of people about their religion, and I found it very interesting to see the differences between an atheist or an agnostic person versus someone with religion.”

“I had some very extensive talks with my friends, and I wanted to continue that and get into the nitty-gritty of it,” Burlin said. “Because I didn’t really understand what we were talking about, I just thought it was neat that we did talk about it.”

The question that came up a lot in his discussion with people about religion was, “Where did we come from?,”, which is a very popular topic of religion. That’s when Burlin knew he wanted to study the science and compare and contrast them.

“I wanted to do an MX,” Burlin said. “But topics with religion and science can get really heated sometimes. It’s a really sensitive topic. It’s like politics. You don’t go up and just rant about politics for an MX. It makes people angry, and it doesn’t appeal to people. It’s not enjoyable because of all the conflicting views.” Instead, he plans on doing a smaller presentation in the library or write an essay and post it somewhere people can see.