Broadening their economic horizons

Competing in the semifinal round of the seventh annual Euro Challenge will be an experience the five Hewlett High School students said they would never forget.

The Euro challenge is a yearly nationwide competition that has teams of three to five students making presentations and answering specific questions about the European economy and its single currency, the euro.

Samantha Acriche, Andrew Beller, Zach Bernstein, Elyse Cooper and Zainab Mahmood, all of Dr. Patricia Nardi’s Advanced Placement (AP) European History class, presented their topic, the ageing process in Germany, addressing issues of unemployment and life expectancy, among others to establish solutions. “Everyone sees Germany as a strong country but it also has its problems,” Mahmood said.

The team first competed against more than 100 teams on April 4 in New York City for a chance to advance to the semifinal round. “It was very enjoyable working together as a group and learning together,” Acriche said. “Taking what we learned and presenting it was very rewarding.”

Cooper was the first of the group to be notified that the team was one of 25 to move onto the semifinal round on April 30. “It was great to see our hard work pay off and that we were able to give another presentation,” she said.

On April 30, the team returned to the city and presented their project to another group of judges for a chance to vie for a spot on the top five teams. “We did not advance to the final round but we stuck around to watch the other teams present their projects during the finals [on the same day],” Beller said.

Despite not advancing to the finals, the team cannot be prouder of their efforts as they prepared for hours after school and during their free time with their advisor, Dr. Nardi, an AP European History and social science research advisor at Hewlett High School. “Even with hours of reading, the experience was definitely not dull,” Bernstein said.

Nardi has been with Hewlett High School’s Euro Challenge team each year since its inception in 2005. “In our first year we won the whole thing and have been in the semifinals since then,” she said. “I help the students prep, gather information and contact experts for additional sources. I also act as their research assistant and a judge, making sure I pose certain questions and that they are within the require time constraints.”

According to Nardi, the benefits students’ gain from participating in the Euro Challenge will last well beyond the dates of the competition. “They developed a knowledge base of the European area and economics that they didn’t have before,” she said. “Also, good research skills, how to put together a presentation and working together as a team. Many students who participated in the Euro Challenge in the past have moved onto careers in economics.”

Although the students are only sophomores, they plan to take what they’ve learned from the Euro Challenge and apply it to whichever career path they choose. “It broadened our horizons,” Acriche said. “And opened my eyes to what is out there.”