Middle Schoolers Attend Future Problem Solvers Conference

Patrice Gans’s Gifted and Talented students at Newtown Middle School are proven problem solvers. Five seventh graders qualified for the Future Problem Solving Program of Connecticut’s (FPSP) annual conference, attended by more than 200 Connecticut students in grades 4–12. Newtown students who qualified were Drew Robinson, Brian Reed, Matt Hoffmann, Alex Madaus, and Greg Campbell.

To qualify, students are given a futuristic problem. They think about challenges associated with the problem, possible solutions, and through research, offer the best solution. The entries are judged on thoroughness of research and futuristic vision.

Of the five young men, only two, Matt Hoffmann and Greg Campbell, were able to attend the conference on April 29. The conference is divided into two tiers. The first tier is comprised of complete teams from Connecticut schools. The second encompasses “Zippy Teams.” Zippy Teams are created when students attend the conference without all their team members. Matt and Greg were placed on different Zippy Teams. Matt’s team took first place among the Zippy Teams.

This year, the focus of the FPSP problems was health care access. The original problem the NMS team tackled concerned inequities in Mexico between those suffering from malnutrition and others in the country being obese. The students have to figure out how to create fairer food distribution practices.

At the competition, the problem was in the future, people live longer. Between the ages of 120 and 150, people developed Stith’s Syndrome. The treatment involved underwater, pressurized treatments. The treatments take a long time and are expensive. The students needed to find a way to improve treatment. Matt’s team came up with the solution of providing more places to perform the treatments, allowing more patients to be served.

This is the second year NMS has participated in the conference. Mrs Gans would like to see the program expanded to include other grade levels. Anyone can coach a problem solving team. FPSP provides training for coaches.