HARRISBURG — Do you know anything about Croatia, including its history, common exports and when it entered the European Union? How about the role inflation plays in the country’s economy?
These are just a few of the considerations students who are part of Hickory Ridge High’s Euro Challenge team will have to consider when they compete against 24 other high school teams across the country in next week’s national semifinals, and hopefully finals, in New York City.
“I think it’s really cool to be able to meet schools all over the country,” said David Bolick, one of the members of the four-person team. As someone who has never been to New York, “I think it’s going to be a really amazing experience.”
The Euro Challenge, launched in the United States in 2006 and hosted annually by the European Union Delegation to the U.S., provides high school students “the opportunity to learn about the euro, the single market, and other concepts central to the European Union and economics,” according to its website.
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The Hickory Ridge team — comprised of sophomores Brady Powell, David Bolick, Varshita Boggala and Vartika Rani — is the only group that qualified for the semifinals from North Carolina. The transportation and lodging for the teams are funded largely by two groups: the World Affairs Council and Working in Support of Education (W!se).
The group defeated three other high school teams last month, including perennial powerhouse Charlotte Country Day School, during the preliminary round at UNC Charlotte, hosted by the World Affairs Council of Charlotte.
Social Studies teacher Spencer Swindler organized the group earlier in the school year. He had previously instructed teams during his time at Mallard Creek High School. This is the first year any Cabarrus County high school has been involved with Euro Challenge.
Swindler has had two previous teams qualify for the semifinals, but the Hickory Ridge students are “probably the strongest team I’ve ever had,” he said. He noted the team does a good job working together and finding ways to improve as needed.
The members knew very little about the European Union or Croatia, but were excited to learn as much as they could. Swindler encouraged the team to choose to focus on Croatia, as it was the latest country to adopt the euro as its official currency.
“I plan on majoring in economics in college, so I thought this would be a really good opportunity and it sounded really interesting,” Rani said.
Macroeconomics has always intrigued Powell, “so this seemed like a cool opportunity,” he said.
The team has been meeting weekly after school since late last year to prepare and learn as much as possible about Croatia, most notably how inflation has impacted the country and the fiscal policies the government can implement to address the challenge.
“When we originally started, inflation was definitely a big concern for most people” in Croatia, Powell said about choosing inflation as the team’s challenge topic.
Once in New York, the team will have 15 minutes to present their ideas and 10 minutes to answer questions from the judges. They went through a mock presentation last week.
The students created their own script, which will play out as a fictitious European Central Bank (ECB) podcast, where Rani is the moderator and the other students answer questions as economic experts.
The students are excited as they prepare to head to New York to compete against the other teams.
“Since we’ve done a lot of preparing, we don’t feel that nervous,” Bolick said. “We feel pretty confident about what we have.”
The team members are also proud about how much they’ve learned and how far they’ve come in the past few months.
“I learned a lot more than I expected to,” Rani said. “At the beginning, I did not know any of the economic terms that we talk about and now I know a lot about them and I can use them in our presentation.”
Studying as much as they have about Croatia has made the students interested to someday visit the country.
“I’ve learned a lot about the cities within Croatia and just how beautiful the country really is,” Bolick said.