Our team was selected into national finals for the first time this year! We were quite surprised and proud that we made it in and was one of the five WA teams in the middle division.

This was our second year in the FPS (future problem solving) Global Goals program. It challenged us to work together as a team analysing a scene that pictured hypothetical situations that may happen in the future. We went through steps to find problems leading to futuristic solutions.

I found that we were able to find more plausible problems that time, although I think our underlying problem (the root of the problems we found) was a bit limited and that then restricted the scope of our solutions. For example, our UP focused on specifically getting work for 16hrs a day and receive an adequate income so that they get out of poverty. This then led to only being able to generate solutions that offered “work for 16hrs a day and receive an adequate income”.

As part of nationals, we also had to ‘sell’ our action plan through a performance in a small amount of time. We planned a play that involved a small rhyming song, speaking in another language, and included the mystery props and quote. This new task mainly encouraged and challenged our spontaneous creativity.

Future Problem Solving improves problem solving under pressure with our limited time, teamwork, spontaneous creativity, and futuristic thinking. Hopefully, we make it into national finals again next year with even more improvement with the quality of our skills and work!