WELLMAN

On April 5, Mid-Prairie’s future problem solvers headed to Central College in Pella to compete in the State Bowl competition. Five of them walked away with awards.

High schoolers Phoebe Shelter, Charlotte Sieren, and Maelys Beachy took home first place trophies in their respective categories, qualifying them for competition at the International Conference in June at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Middle schoolers Gwen Wunderlich, who was awarded a second-place medal, and Madi Liska, who was awarded a fifth-place ribbon, also had a very successful day.

Denise Busch, K-12 talented and gifted teacher, coaches the future problem solvers at Mid-Prairie. This year, she assisted four Global Issues Problem Solving (GIPS) teams and one individual, as well as two students who participated in Scenario Writing, at the middle school. At the high school, she guided three GIPS teams and one individual, as well as two students who participated in Scenario Writing.

For Shelter, a senior, having a year of scenario writing behind her gave her an edge.

“My first year, I completely messed up and didn’t really know what I was doing,” she admits. As a result, she didn’t expect to win first place in her division at state. When she learned of her placement, “I was like, okay, maybe I got it right this year,” she says.

Sieren, a junior, competed as an individual in GIPS.

“They give you a future scene, and it was about self-driving vehicles. And then you have to come up with all of the problems for it, and then pick one and make solutions,” she explains. “My solution was to make them have more sensitive systems than they did.”

Her work earned her first place in her division.

“That was exciting,” she says. “I definitely wasn’t expecting it, either.”

For freshman Maelys Beachy, who was a future problem solver as a middle schooler, scenario writing is fun because she enjoys language arts and writing stories.

“You choose between four topics, and I chose Antarctica,” she explains. “I’ve always liked Antarctica, [I] like something about it. I was excited to do it because it seemed like it would be a pretty fun topic.”

Winning first place in her division meant her hard work paid off.

“I was just glad because I worked so hard for it,” she says. “I spent all of my snow days working on it, so I was really hoping that I would make it to internationals.”

Unlike her teammates, who have summer plans and ACTs to take, Beachy plans to attend the international competition at Indiana University June 5-9.

“I’m excited to go there and see all the people, because there’s people from China, there’s people from everywhere, like France,” she says. “I’m excited to actually compete in scenario writing and see what the topic is for that.”

For the accomplished middle schoolers, the ability to work as a team is a highlight of being a future problem solver.

“I think it’s just fun to work as a group,” Liska, an eighth grader, says. “We weren’t friends in the beginning, but I think these problems always really brought us together, and it’s just fun to be a part of something like that.”

“It’s an amazing group and team, [and] we get to work together for almost the entire year,” Wunderlich, also in eighth grade, agrees. “It’s just a great group of kids.”