Mid-Prairie's Future Problem Solvers

By Cheryl Allen
Posted 5/17/23

At daybreak, January 1, 2000, some of us were worried about a thing called Y2K.   We had been happily living our lives, getting used to email and the internet and ordering things with a click on …

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Mid-Prairie's Future Problem Solvers

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At daybreak, January 1, 2000, some of us were worried about a thing called Y2K.  We had been happily living our lives, getting used to email and the internet and ordering things with a click on Amazon, and then suddenly we were worried that when we entered the new millennium, our computers wouldn’t know 1974 from 2074 because we hadn’t really thought that far ahead when programming two-digit dates into our software.  Oops.

Fortunately, the ‘computer-induced apocalypse’ never happened because some computer programmers saw this future problem on the horizon as early as 1984 and took action.  Good thing we have forward thinkers.

The next generation of future problem solvers is already at work at Mid-Prairie Middle and High Schools.  K-12 Talented and Gifted teacher Denise Busch is coaching her students through competition in Global Issues Problem Solving, Scenario Performance, and Scenario Writing, all programs of Future Problem Solving Program International.  They’re having great success.

Future Problem Solving (FPS) is a program that teaches students an effective 6-step problem solving process that will help them solve problems for their communities now and in the future.  The steps include identifying challenges; selecting an underlying problem; producing solution ideas; generating and selecting criteria; applying criteria; and developing an action plan.

When students compete in the program, they use this process to solve a problem that could occur 20-30 years in the future.

In addition to encouraging their development in STEM disciplines and boosting their creativity, Busch says it also helps develop her students’ “divergent and convergent thinking.  At first, they have to be divergent and think of all sorts of different [challenges], and then they converge by bringing it together to come up with a solution,” she says.

Busch’s students compete in three different categories; the first is Global Issues Problem Solving.  She has 14 teams (of up to four members) and one individual who compete in this category, and six of those qualified to compete at the state competition in April.  

In this category, “Before each of the competitions, students research the topic and practice using the problem-solving process.  During competitions, participants employ the six-step process to address an imaginary situation in the future scene,” Busch says.

Any kind of future scene may be handed to students; one, for example, explores issues around gamification and presents a world in which students are implanted with e-learning chips, issued 35-hour energy patches, and use avatars to communicate with each other.  Participants brainstorm what problems could arise out of such a world, and what might be done about them.

The second category in which Busch’s students compete is Scenario Writing.  Here, “Each student works independently to develop a short story that relates to one of that year’s FPS topics.  The story must be based at least 20 years in the future.  Their narrative is scored based on creativity, character, plot, topic research, and futuristic possibilities,” Busch explains.

Eighth-grader Maelys Beachy wrote a scenario titled, “It Can’t Get Any Worse Than This,” that earned her a first-place trophy at State competition.  She imagined a world of waste and overconsumption that affected every area of her character’s life.  

Ava Miller, also an eighth grader, won third place at State with her scenario, “The Government’s Secret,” a story about a world in which everything is destroyed by the world’s biggest war yet and only a few people know a secret truth.

The third category of competition is Scenario Performance.  “This is an oral story-telling competition where each student works independently to develop a short story that relates to one of that year’s FPS Topics.  Students have up to five minutes to tell their creative, futuristic story in a moving and entertaining manner,” Busch says.

Abby Kraus, 9th grade, earned first place at State with her story about virtual reality in which a person becomes addicted to life in a virtual world.

Each of these award-winning students, Beachy, Miller, and Kraus, will now advance to international competition.  In June they will be traveling to the University of Massachusetts to compete.  

It’s an experience Busch thinks her students will grow from.  They will learn how to prepare and show up, work under pressure and stress, and “It’s going to give them leadership skills and the ability to meet new people, certainly,” she says.

Developing foresight and problem-solving skills are things we all could benefit from; being able to imagine a yet-unrealized future is “a total mind shift,” as Busch points out.  Fortunately, Mid-Prairie has students getting a taste of what it’s like to lead the way forward.