Sandy Hook Students On Top Teams—

Local Students Compete At 25th Annual Student Future Problem Solving Conference

Students from Sandy Hook, Bethel, Monroe, and Norwalk represented Fairfield County Homeschoolers at the Future Problem Solving Program of Connecticut, Inc’s 25th annual conference. Connecticut’s top student problem solvers convened at E.O. Smith High School on the UConn campus for the conference on March 28–29. The competition was broken into divisions based on age: junior division (grades 4–6), middle division (grades 7–9), and senior division (grades 10–12).

At the awards ceremony on Saturday evening, the Fairfield County Homeschoolers Middle Division Team, made up of Owen and Will Sandercox of Sandy Hook, Dylan Dembin of Monroe, Steven Yingling of Norwalk, and Tristan Speed of Bethel, won third place in the Action Plan Presentation competition for their division.  Representing Fairfield County Homeschoolers in the Junior Division Zippy Competition, Julia Yingling of Norwalk and Caroline McArdle of Sandy Hook won first place with their team for the Written Problem Solving Booklet and second place for their Action Plan Presentation.

In preparing for the conference, teams of Future Problem Solvers first began working on practice problems in the areas of simulation technology and neurotechnology earlier in the school year. The students spent the last two months studying the topic of “Debt in Developing Countries” in preparation for the state conference.

On March 28, the first day of the competition, student teams were presented with a possible future problem scenario that related to the debt studies they had been doing for the last eight weeks. The students used the program’s six-step problem solving process to analyze the potential situation, determine the challenges, describe the underlying problem, outline solutions, evaluate solutions, and detail their action plan. The teams’ written work was submitted in booklets and evaluated by a panel of judges.

On Saturday morning, the teams prepared their Action Plan Presentations for the second part of the competition later that afternoon. They fashioned props and costumes from a list of everyday household materials. In dramatic, and often humorous skits, the teams presented their action plans to a panel of judges and an audience of their peers.

Future Problem Solving Program of Connecticut, Inc is an affiliate of the International Future Problem Solving Program that includes more than 250,000 students annually from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Russia. The organization is dedicated to preparing Connecticut’s students for the future by teaching them essential problem solving skills.

Future Problem Solving motivates and assists students to develop an active interest in the future, improve written and oral communication skills, work cooperatively, and develop research skills while learning about complex social and scientific issues. Students think on their feet — creatively, critically, and analytically.