A student on the debate team at Assumption College Catholic High School says the team is feeling a wide range of emotions ahead of the National Championships next week.
Safiya Shujah, a Grade 12 student on the team says the small group of seven girls will leave on April 30 and will compete against eight other teams from across Canada at the event in Winnipeg.
In February, the girls earned their spot at provincials by winning a regional qualifier held at Western University. In early March the Assumption team competed against 16 other teams from across Ontario at the Ontario Ethics Bowl held at the University of Toronto's Mississauga campus.
The team has been provided with 16 topics that they will prepare for prior to the debate competition, with topics ranging from ethics, to political topics, and even aesthetic preferences such as politeness norms.
Shujah says the team is feeling a range of emotions.
"At the end of the day I think our team really works well together, and that's definitely one of our strengths. So spending time together and discussing a lot of those cases in preparation really helps us feel a lot more calm and collected going into the event."
She says there is a list of topics they will prepare for.
"The nature of harm and how do you know when you've been harmed by something, and then a few of the other ones touch on more political natured questions. We have some that touch on bystanders in society, as well as in school settings. We have a few that involve protests, we have a few that involve activism."
She says the team has their own method to prepare for the topics.
"What we usually do is we break the team down into smaller groups, so we have about three people per case, and then each team of people will discuss that case together. We'll get the whole teams perspective, but then we'll have usually a couple team members who are on a case to discuss it and then come up with our points that we'll use going forward."
Shujah adds that being a part of the debate team has improved her public speaking skills, and confidence as well.
The seven girls on the team are made up of six Grade 12's and one Grade 11 student.