Problem solved: Faculty member helps Stroud students at international competition

Stroud Elementary School's Community Problem Solving team may face a lot of obstacles as a group, but succeeding at an international level isn't one of them.

The elementary school's team, now in its second year, has now twice qualified for the International Future Problem Solving Program competition after willing at the state level. And this year, the students came back with a second-place prize for an effort to confront an environmental crisis—with a narrow margin separating them from the first-place team.

Stroud's Community Problem Solving team was started by College of Education lecturer Meg Hines. She, along with professor Tarek Grantham and a host of graduate students in the department of educational psychology, have been working with the school to bring more opportunities for creative instruction.

The Community Problem Solving Program is a component of the Future Problem Solving Program, an international program created by former College of Education professor E. Paul Torrance to stimulate critical and creative thinking skills.

Last year the team traveled to Michigan for the international competition. This year, they competed in Wisconsin with a project that involved improving the health of a stream on the school's property. Working with Liz French, a graduate student in the Warnell School of Forestry, the students designed and built a rain garden to filter pollutants before the water reached the stream.