Congratulations to Neil Chowdhury, Jake Donner, Lucas Hou and Carina Sun, fifth graders at Spiritridge Elementary School.  These students placed first in the Junior Division (grades 4-6) at the Future Problem Solving (FPS) International competition.

FPS is an international organization in which students from around the world participate. FPS’ mission is to help students design and promote positive futures at an international level through problem solving by using critical and creative thinking.

Global Issues Problem Solving, a competitive component of FPS, is a four-person team activity in which participants apply a six-step creative problem solving process to resolve the underlying problem presented in an imagined situation, termed Future Scene, in two hours. Topics for the Future Scene include global issues in the areas of business and economics, science and technology, and social and political areas. After students practice twice on two different topics, they complete a state qualifying test. If they qualify for state, they will compete against all other state teams for first place. If a team wins first place at state, they qualify for internationals. At the international level, students compete against 13 other countries and more than 40 states. This year the international competition was held in Ames, Iowa and the topic was Intellectual Property. Washington has had FPS teams for many years, but Spiritridge Elementary School created its first team this year, coached by Ms. Michelle Benzinger.

The Bellevue School District acknowledges that we learn, work, live and gather on the Indigenous Land of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Duwamish and Snoqualmie Tribes. We thank these caretakers of this land, who have lived and continue to live here, since time immemorial.