The Walla Walla High School Future Problem Solving Club participated at the State Competition in Stanwood, Wash., on April 12, 2012.
Six teams of three or four individual students represented Walla Walla in the Global Issues Problem Solving Competition and the Presentation Competition. This year’s topic was Trade Barriers.
In the Global Problem Solving Competition two teams made the final, and during Paired Comparison Analysis, they won the 4th and 5th place.
The team of Andrew Bateman, Connor Buckley, Erik Dohe and Zachary Chlipala placed 4th and the team of Teagan Coleman, Julia Cosma and Anna Burgess placed 5th.
In the Presentation Competition the team consisting of Teagan Coleman, Julia Cosma and Anna Burgess came in 2nd.
In order to prepare for the Global Problem Solving Competition, the students researched and discussed the topic in the weeks before the competition. During the actual competition, they had two hours to read a futuristic scenario, identify and write 16 challenges, decide upon the most important problem that they see and write a problem statement that they feel needs to be solved. They then write 16 different solutions to that problem. The next step requires them to write five criteria to evaluate their top eight solutions and finally they write a plan of action for their best solution. The top teams in the state are able to use their creativity and communication skills to write a very convincing packet for the judges to score.
The presentation competition is based on the work that they complete during the Global Issues Problem Solving Competition. They only have about three hours to create a four-minute presentation based on the action plan that they just created.
The following additional teams participated in the Competition:
Scott Bettencourt, Mac Clifton, Aaron Gogl, and Travis Stinebaugh
Reilly Beckstrand, Jennifer Cho, Madyson Gabriel, and Emily Pryor
Maggie Buob, Kaelie Coleman, Emily Leinweber, and Hannah Mitchell
Danny Butler, Catherine Feistner, and Jacob Leinweber.
