Emerald High debate club hosts an online tournament

As part of a friendly competition to boost the debating skills of students, Emerald High’s debate club hosted an online debate tournament for its many club members  on January 20. 

Currently the most active club in the new high school, the debate club has begun to function like a full-fledged club: it has participated in multiple competitions and has over fifty members, many of whom regularly attend club meetings. Every one of these meetings is planned in advance with an agenda of what will be covered, feedback for what students should work on for their next debate, and activities like practice debates to help members improve their debate skills. The online debate tournament, then, is just further evidence of the debate club’s coming into its identity as a fully realized club at Emerald High. 

Laasya Vavilapalli, a member of the Emerald debate club, commented on her excitement on how the debate club has helped her. “I think the debate club is an amazing [opportunity] to gain communication skills, and it’s fun to participate in various tournaments. Every single tournament is an opportunity for me to learn and become a better speaker, and I’m really grateful that I joined this club!” Laasya commented. 

The topic for the recent tournament was “Should the United States federal government ban single-use plastics?” Each round a team was randomly chosen to be for or against single-use plastics, requiring that participants be well-prepared with information, conscious of how much time they took during the debate to speak, and sure of how to refute the opposing team’s arguments. In this tournament, each round had a judge that would decide who won the debate based on how the argument was articulated, if the team spoke within the time limit, and if their argument was relevant and had more compelling points. 

After five rounds of debate, the competition dwindled until Paarth Agrawal and Mrinal Agarwal emerged as finalists against Surya Nookal and Sai Choudarypally. Although Sai and Surya ended up winning, every team that competed learned more about what they are good at and what they could improve.

Sai, one of the online debate winners, spoke about his experience during the debate. “The online debate definitely helped my debate skills; it was a fun tournament that helped me listen and understand how to reply to what other people’s arguments were,” Sai remarked. 

Overall, the online debate tournament was an experience that brought debate students together and helped them improve their debating skills and gain more experience. As the debate club continues to gain more members, win more competitions, and hold practice debates, its progress is inspiring many other clubs in Emerald to work to achieve the same level of success.