Summer Break is the perfect time for laying by the pool and spending time with friends and family. This Summer, a few students went above and beyond in stretching their minds to compete and place in the 2021 Future Problem Solvers (FPS) International Competition.
Upper School FPS Coach, Mrs. Shannon Lichty, stresses the difficulty of getting to the International competition. “In order to qualify for the international competition you have to place first or second in any of the team competitions. For the Senior division sometimes it goes down to fourth place because there are so many teams, but for sure in the Junior and Middle division it is the top two teams. For individual competition in scenario writing, the first three places at state automatically advance to the international competition and the first place winner automatically gets invited to the international conference in June,” Mrs. Lichty said.
Students who participate in the Future Problem Solvers program devote countless hours to be prepared to perform well in each competition throughout the year in order to secure their spot in the international competition.
Senior Evelyn Edwards, a semi-finalist in the Senior division of the Global Issues Problem Solving team competition whose team placed thirteenth out of over 60 teams, said, “The best part about Internationals is getting to see all the different perspectives and unique ideas that people from all around the world come up with. Zoom really brought out the creative side in a lot of teams which in turn elevated the level of competition as well as how much fun we had.” Students competing in the competition use their various talents and creative ideas to come up with solutions to the problems given to them.
“I think a big factor to our success was that we each knew our strengths. For example, [two of the members of our team would] write our entire step six while [another member of our team and I would] return to previous steps to add research,” said Senior Sydney Brown, a member who worked alongside Evelyn Edwards and two others.The students competing in the group competitions learn the value of teamwork as they strive to achieve a common goal.
“I plan to stay with the same team, which I’m very excited about and do what we did last year but critique some weaknesses. It will be a fun FPS Senior year,” said Senior Callie Brady. FPS members are dedicated to success and are working to surpass last year’s results in the FPS 2021-2022 season.
