The Northern Problem Solvers consist of
students from NMS who compete in Future Problem Solving (FPS) and
Community Problem Solving (CmPS).
Northern's FPS teams practice on Tuesday
afternoons after school until 5:00. Students are presented with a
futuristic scenario on a given topic. They are then required to
generate challenges, an underlying problem, solution ideas, criteria,
and an action plan related to the future scene. Sixth grade students
compete in Junior Future Problem Solving. Seventh and Eighth Grade
Students compete at Governor's Cup competitions. Northern's Junior FPS
teams both advanced to KAAC State Finals in 2007 finishing 3rd and 18th
respectively. NMS's Middle Grades FPS team won the District and
Regional titles and finished as State Runner up advancing to the FPSP
International Conference in Ft. Collins, CO in June of 2007. NMS
student Shelbie Phelps is the reigning State Champion in the Individual
FPS competition. Shelbie finished 8th at international competition.
Coach Scott Sexton is the reigning International Champion in the adult
division.
Northern also competes in Community Problem
Solving (CmPS). Students select an area of concern in the community and
then prepare an action plan to solve these problems. Northern had three
projects to win Grand Champion at KAAC State finals in 2007 and one
project to finish as state runner up. These projects advanced to
inernational competition as well where Northern's middle grades team
finished 2nd and NMS's Junior team finished 4th. Shelbie Phelps
finished 2nd in the middle grades Individual CmPS competition. Evan
Holbrook is the reigning international champion in the Junior Individual
CmPS competition. Northern has 6 projects currently underway for the
2007-2008 school year.