Caledonia Argus

Posted: 4/27/04

By David Heiller
Argus News Editor

Four Caledonia High School seniors hope to bring home a state title in the Future Problem Solving Program contest this Saturday.

The competition will be held at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School in Plymouth.

Future Problem Solving Program (FPSP) is just what the name implies: an international organization that holds competitions for groups of high school students who try to solve problems of the future.

The contests, which are timed, are done at individual schools, without any head-to-head competition until the state tournament.

Julie Abrahamzon, Anna Bulman, Sarah Doty, and Carrie Meiners will compete for Caledonia. The four seniors are a tight-knit team, having worked together since ninth grade when they won a state FPSP title for their age division.

They are excited about the chance to do it again. ìWe only do it to get to state,î Abrahamzon said, lest anyone think this is a sedate bunch of girls without a competitive side.

ìItís really pretty stiff,î Bulman added about the level of competition. ìItís fun if you win.î

So why do these students, who spend all day in school, spend part of their free time doing more intense studying and writing?

ìIt makes you think of things youíve never thought before,î Doty said. She added that it brings out creative thinking, and helps with writing papers for school.

ìYou can apply it to anything in life,î Bulman said. It can work for big decisions like picking out a car, or simple things like deciding where to eat.

ìYour mind just goes nuts,î she said with a laugh.

ìWeíre geeks,î Meiners explained with another laugh. ìWe just worry.î

Another student, junior Julia Quanrud, has already won a 2004 state championship in Scenario Writing, a sub-category of FPSP. (See related story on this page.)

Quanrud said that FPSP takes a positive approach with a philosophy of, ìHow can we help? How can we improve things?î It urges actions to make situations better.

So what will these girls be doing in their future? Meiners would like to be a police officer, Doty wants to be a pediatrician in a big city, Quanrud wants to work in law, Abrahamzon wants to work in business, and Bulman wants to be a physician, perhaps in cardiology.

ìOur futureís in good hands,î their coach, Cheryl Whitesitt, said when she heard these answers. She has watched them grow, and is proud of them. ìThey know how to have fun, how to be serious,î she said.

Whitesitt is in her 18th and final year as Caledoniaís FPSP coach. To call it a successful run is an understatement. For 17 of those years, she has taken a team to the state tournament.

She is also the FPSP statewide program director. She believes in the program, and gets a lot of good feedback from former students.

The important part of the program, Whitesitt feels, is learning how to use the skills in their everyday life. For example, Whitesittís daughter Leigh, used it to find a law school. Another former student, Chad Harms, uses it in his job as an airplane pilot.

Teacher Jen Snook will take over the program next year. Whitesitt will stay on to coach Julia Quanrud in her final year.

How an FPSP contest works

Future Problem Solvers Program (FPSP) contests work like this. Teams are given a broad topic before hand. For example, this year they had four topics. The first three were Smart Clothes, Rage and Bullying, and Artificial Intelligence.

The fourth topic, which will be featured at the state tournament on May 1, is Media Impact. They research it using various resources, such an FPSP workbook, the Internet, and field trips. They talk about it at team meetings. At the contest, they are given a more specific ìfuture sceneî problem within that category.

Then they follow these steps in a timed activity:

STEP 1: Identify challenges; these are issues, concerns, and problems related to the future scene, and focus on 16 challenges that you think are the most important.

STEP 2: Select an underlying problem; it should be of major importance. Write down an underlying problem in question form, such as, ìIn what ways might we . . .?î

STEP 3: Produce solution ideas; write down the 16 most promising solution ideas, describing who will carry out what action, how it will be done, why it will solve the problem, and where and when the solution takes place.

STEP 4: Select criteria; choose the most promising solution that does the best job of solving the underlying problem. Select the five most important criteria for measuring the solution.

STEP 5: Apply criteria; from the list of solution ideas, select the 10 ideas that you think have the most potential and rank them on a scale of 1-10.

STEP 6: Develop an action play; do this using your most promising solution. Explain what the solution will do, and how and why it will work.

Scenario writing a good match for Julia

Caledonia High School junior Julia Quanrud takes part in a category of the Future Problem Solvers Program called Scenario Writing.

She won a state champion award in it both last year and this year.

Scenario writing is like a research paper, only in a story format of 1,500 words or less. It must be based at least 20 years into the future.

The difficult part is developing the problem and finding the solutions, Julia said.

Students know the potential topics nine months in advance. Julia started a couple drafts on different topics, but they didnít work. Then President Bush came out with his immigration reforms and something clicked. She wrote her scenario on the outcomes of President George Bushís immigration proposal.

She wrote several drafts and gave them to different people to read, including teachers, her mother Audrey, and her coach, Cheryl Whitesitt. Julia likes doing scenario writing because she is interested in politics, and finds it to be a good match with that.

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