Clarkston High School junior Trevor Torres considered the product in his hand and gave it back to junior Matt Dahl and junior Dan Agnew.
Along with junior Sean McNeil, the four were practicing their skit for the Future Problem Solvers State Bowl Tournament at Clarkston Junior High School, April 21.
During the morning, they wrote their solution to the problem presented to them and then worked on the skits to convince the judges their solution and action plan would work ? they took first place in the presentation of their action plan.
The high school team, with senior Sarah Keller, senior Jacob Kornas, junior Brooke Huisman, and sophomore Phoebe Morris, won the title of champions in the senior division of the Global Scenario Problem Solving and won second place for their presentation of their action plan.
They were invited to represent the state of Michigan at the International Competition at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., June 7-10.
Another team from Clarkston also won the state champion title in the Global Scenario Problem Solvers and were also invited to Indiana for the International Competition. Eighth-graders Hanna Jeung, Zachary Evans, Connor Kornas and Nate Gipe from Clarkston Junior High School took the title in the middle division. They also won first place for their presentation of their action plan.
Ten teams from Clarkston Community Schools participated in the state bowl. Six were from Sashabaw Middle School, two from junior high and two from the high school for a total of 58 students. Three teams from the middle school won awards for their presentation of their action plan, and one middle school team and one junior high team were semifinalists in the Global Scenario Problem Solving in their respective division.
“I am so proud of all of our teams and students for competing at the state bowl level and want to congratulate the two teams that were named 2012 FPS state champions,” said Holly Kornas, one of the coaches for the junior high and high school teams. “All of the students did a lot of hard work and research throughout the season to prepare to compete in the state bowl.”
Other coaches are Sue Banworth for the junior high, high school, and middle school, and Lisa Crawford for the middle school teams.
A total of 75 teams from all over Michigan competed at the Future Problem Solvers State Bowl, 17 in the senior division, 27 in the middle division, and 31 in the junior division.
Under the guidance of teachers and coaches, teams of four students use the Future Problem Solvers six-step model to explore challenges and propose action plans to societal problems in business and economics, science and technology, and social and political issues.
This year’s problems included work, coral reefs, and human rights. The State bowl topic was trade barriers, and the International Competition topic was pharmaceuticals.