Recently, 15 of our Future Problem Solving (FPS) students attended the annual State Resource Day, held at St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace, for an informative session leading up to the qualification stage.
FPS is an academic competition that challenges students to consider problems that may develop in the future and practical ways we can consider solving them. While the problems are set in the near future, they’re all based on issues that have relevance in 2022, making the competition practical and engaging. Each week, girls from Years 7 to 12 join with boys from BGS to prepare for the upcoming competition on a variety of topics. This year’s practice topics included ‘Water Supply and Building Green’, while the qualification problem topic this year was ‘Insects’.
More than 100 students from South East Queensland attended this event, which focused on the role insects will play in our future—as protein and pests. They had the pleasure of listening to three experts in the field presenting their research findings: Dr. Anthony Young, School of Agriculture and Food Sciences from The University of Queensland; Dr Natalie Nicholas, ER doctor studying a Masters of Public Health and Tropical Medicine through James Cook University; and Professor Michael Good from the Institute of Glycomics at Griffith University.
Our students took notes, asked pertinent questions, and had the opportunity to write a practice response to a future scenario where insects are being considered for future protein production. Teams had to identify challenges we could face by introducing this new agricultural upheaval and consider how we might solve them.
Coming up, our qualification competition takes place in a two-hour lockdown scenario on Tuesday 9 August. Our teams will only have two hours to read the unseen scenario on the topic of insects, identify potential challenges and, using research, devise potential solutions.
Mr Nathan King
Future Problem Solving Coordinator
