Breadcrumbs

University experience for talented youngsters

8 September 2014

Future problem solving international conference finals

Winners: From left, Mount Maunganui Intermediate School students Louis Donovan, Anna Petersen, Jonathan Tomlinson and Ben Tustin with the trophies they were awarded at the Future Problem Solving International Conference Finals (absent: Hayley Thomas).

Creativity and futuristic thinking were the key skills shown by a team of Mount Maunganui Intermediate School students who were successful at the Future Problem Solving International Conference Finals, held in the USA last June.

Having a taste of university life

The group made a visit to the University of Waikato’s Faculty of Science & Engineering today, where they worked with staff on a series of hands-on workshops, giving them a taste of university life. The campus visit was organised as part of the Faculty’s sponsorship of the finals trip.

Onsite for the visit were team members Anna Petersen, Jonathan Tomlinson and Louis Donovan. Although team member Hayley Thomas was unable to attend, classmate Ben Tustin joined the visit. Ben was recently awarded a major prize at the Bay of Plenty Science Fair.

During their visit to Waikato University the team spent time in the Faculty’s greenhouses, where team members worked on a hydroponics project with Biological Sciences technician Lynne Baxter.

The group also learned about electromagnetics in the physics workshop, built a machine for sorting lollies in the engineering workshop and tested their senses with guessing boxes in the biology lab.

Solving real-world problems

Future Problem Solving is a competitive team activity that requires research, innovation, teamwork and creative thinking to develop actionable solutions to real-world problems.

At the international finals the group was awarded third place in the junior division for the Global Issues Problem Solving challenge and fourth place for the presentation of its action plan.

The team was selected for the international competition at the New Zealand finals. “Our topic was ‘Ocean Soup’, which is all the debris floating around in the Pacific Ocean, that no-one was taking responsibility for. We had to think of ways to make people from different countries take an interest and start addressing the pollution,” says team member Jonathan Tomlinson.

At the international finals the team joined 2,200 participants at Iowa State University. Within their section they were up against 54 teams from around the world, including another New Zealand team.

“The students participated in the Global Issues Division of the programme in which students work in teams of four to explore an important issue of our times. The team was given a one-page future scenario on this year’s ‘space’ topic, ‘mining on one of the moons of the planet Uranus’. They used a six-step method to identify a major underlying problem, possible solutions, and a possible action plan to carry out the best solution,” says team coach and Mount Maunganui Intermediate School teacher, Jane Howard. 

Future Problem Solving is a prestigious international programme, which was established in the 1970s by Dr Paul Torrance, a world leader in the study of creativity and creative problem solving. 


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