A team from WW-P High School South Future Problem Solving Club took first place at the Future Problem Solving state finals. This was South’s first time winning the State Bowl — Woodbridge High School had won this award 10 years in a row.
Two teams from High School South’s Future Problem Solving Club attended the State Bowl on April 22 and 23. The teams qualified for the finals by placing in the top eight on a qualifying problem last February, in the program’s senior (grades 10-12) division. Seniors Preeti Bhattacharji, Brett Frankel, Lauren Yokomizo, and Eric Kang, placed first in the program’s main component, Team Problem Solving. Along with their alternates, seniors Mainak DasGupta and Esther Holland, they also placed second for their presentation of their action plan. Holland, working with students from other schools, took first place in the competition for alternates.
Juniors Michael Zhao, Brian De, Sisi Zhang, and Jenny Qian attended the finals along with alternates sophomore Naveen Kumar and senior Le Chen.
Team Problem Solvers are given a one-page scenario set at least 20 years in the future. In teams of four, they have two hours to work through a six-step process which involves identifying potential challenges, selecting an underlying problem to solve for, generating solution ideas to their underlying problem, and selecting and elaborating on a plan of action.
In a separate competition, students at the State Bowl are asked to creatively present their final solution to the scenario. This year, the future scene’s topic was the depletion of oceanic species.
“FPS, unlike many academic clubs, is one I do because I really enjoy it — the creative thinking, the group dynamics, even how nice the coordinators are,” said Kang.
The top two teams advance to the international conference (IC) in Lexington, Kentucky, where they will join students from across the United States, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Russia and elsewhere. The topic for this year’s IC is business crime.
Last year Bhattacharji (who is also an intern at the WW-P News), Frankel, Yokomizo, and Kang placed second in New Jersey and seventh out of over 60 teams at the IC, all top finishers in their affiliate programs. They also scored sixth for the presentation of their action plan. This was Esther Holland’s fourth consecutive year winning the state alternate competition. Her alternate group at the IC last year won second place. This was the team’s fifth and final state competition.
Freshman Daphne Ezer took second place in the middle (grades 7-9) division. Scenario Writing Competition, in which students write creative short stories based on the topics for the program that year. Senior Carey Li took third in the senior division.
South’s participation this year was paid for in part by a grant from the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation, which has assisted the club with three grants since the club’s beginning in 2002.
