Thirty-Eight Students Qualify for the Future Problem Solving State Bowl
This year, 38 Birchwood 6th-8th grade students qualified for the Future Problem Solving (FPS) State Bowl. Each year Birchwood 6th-8th grade students apply a six-step model which teaches critical and creative thinking, and problem solving to qualify as individuals or teams composed of four students.
The following students, coached by Helene Debelak, Lorraine Tzeng, Diane Owen, Jennifer Seward, Rebecca Graham and Allison Noga will compete at the state level on April 11th:
Junior Division Qualifiers
Folashade Asalu, Samuel Chen, Nelson Kude, Jake Zhang, Kritika Chahar
Caleb Alicea, Nathan Chilcote, Chrysanthi Constantinou, Andrew Khawam, Brian Milindi
Intermediate Division Team Qualifiers
Joshua Gordon, Ted Alten, Manya Raina
Sabrina Syed, Sana Bahadur, Ayat Jaffar, Yara Salam, Aislinn Joyce
Ishika Chand, Haadeya Salman, Caroline Lu, Joshua Chen, Stella Miyares
Leen Salem, Joshua Thomas, Rhea Kumar, Sammy Nemr, Ayah Dinary
Maliha Nadkarni, Olivia Kude, Kyle Vaziri, Reeve Vincent, Saanvi Chari
Zain Daoud, Divyam Purohit, Alex Ticak, Nikhil Yalavarthy, Hussein Alzoubi
Their coach and Birchwood School of Hawken Reading teacher responded to the news by saying, “We are so proud of these students who have qualified as State Bowl Finalists. They have tackled real global issues with hours of research and a complex problem-solving process. In weekly sessions, teachers cultivate creative and critical thinking skills and then watch the students take off!”
Over 50,000 students participate each year in the competitive components comprised of team and individual Global Issues Problem Solving, team and individual Community Problem Solving, and Scenario Writing. About three percent of those participating in FPS competitions earn an invitation to the International Conference of FPSPI.
