
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994                    TAG: 9406170529 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: B3    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: By PATRICK K. LACKEY, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: 940617                                 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH

KEMPSVILLE TEAM SOLVES WORLD PROBLEM TO TAKE PRIZE AT INTERNATIONAL CONTEST

{LEAD} In two tense hours, a team of four Kempsville High School ninth-graders solved a global disease problem and became the first Virginia team ever to win at the Future Problem Solving Program International Conference.

Jennifer Dozier, Michelle Piccioni, Matthew Sachs and Natalie Sidner beat 60 other teams, most of which were state or national champions, last weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich.

{REST} It was the 20th annual International Future Problem Solving competition. Virginia teams have entered in the past 10 years. About 200,000 students worldwide participate in the program, designed to help students become skilled at problem-solving.

The Kempsville ninth-graders won the intermediate division, for grades 7 through 9. There were two other divisions, for grades 4-6 and 10-12.

In a University of Michigan classroom, the four freshmen were given a one-page written description of a world-threatening situation: A Rwanda flu epidemic was spreading and killing people around the globe.

They had to write 20 problems that needed solving to save people from the disease, pick the most pressing problem, write 20 solutions to that problem, and finally elaborate on the best solution to the most pressing problem.

They had to think and write as fast as they could, while coordinating their efforts.

They thought up the last five possible solutions in the last 10 minutes of their allotted two hours.

The main problem, they decided, was the transmission of emerging pathogens around the world via vehicles like planes.

In stating the main problem, they included a 51-word excerpt from a book on disease control. Dozier had memorized it over breakfast a few hours before the competition.

Their main solution was to create a laser scanner to detect emerging pathogens in travelers between countries.

The four students were coached by Carolyn Stamm, who teaches gifted students at Kempsville Middle School.

Rachel Seltman, a Larchmont Elementary School fifth-grader and one of the three individual winners at the Virginia problem-solving contest earlier this year, made it to the 16-person finals in the international competition.

The other two individual winners at the state competition are also from Norfolk.

Also, 20 sixth-graders from Kempsville Middle School placed second in the junior division of Community Problem Solving. They wrote solutions to, and presented a skit about, the problems of Detroit homeless.

by CNB