By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
A DESIRE to discover more about their suburb will lead six students from Fountain Gate Secondary College on an international adventure.
The year nine and 10 students – Paul, Liza, Jessica, Emily, Blerim and Rocky – are part of the school’s Future Problem Solving team.
It is the first of its kind at the college and the first ever Victorian state school group to be invited to represent Australia at the International Future Problem Solving competition in Iowa, America, in June.
The group is already required to have a six-page report sent to Iowa by April.
The student team, Encouraging Pride In Our Community (EPIC), started its project by looking at what members felt were the major issues affecting the Fountain Gate community.
Starting with bullying, the group expanded their investigation to include an appraisal of crime in the area, including graffiti, littering and hoon driving.
It soon became clear to the team that there was a need for greater pride in Fountain Gate and the students quickly went about uncovering the history of their suburb while trying to find a way to teach others about it.
“The fountain is our community symbol and a lot of people didn’t know that.
“We surveyed them and when we got our replies we were a bit shocked that they didn’t know what it meant,” Jessica, one of the students, said.
Paul, another student from the team, said members got started by researching what their school symbol meant.
“We all thought it was a cabbage but we found out it was actually designed from Robin Boyd’s fountain, which was just on Tinks Road.
“The logo means parents, school, community, students and staff,” Paul said.
“Students were in the middle, cradled in.
“No one knew what fountain meant so we had to do further research.”
The students worked strategically with community stakeholders to re-design the gardens surrounding the Robin Boyd fountain and have garnered wide-ranging support from the City of Casey and local MPs and continue to organise fundraisers in the lead-up to their trip.
“They wanted to put the heart back in the community.
“To do that they wanted to re-educate the community on the fountain but also re-design the garden so the community could be proud of it,” Ms Doble said.
The group qualified for the Iowa competition last year after placing third overall in the National Problem Solving championships in Perth.
Accompanied by Ms Doble, who had led the charge on introducing the high achievers program into the school, the students will spend two weeks in America, the second of which will be devoted to the competition which will involve hundreds of other students.
The international championship offers several different components for the competing students to work through, including global issues problem solving, community problem solving, scenario writing and action based problem solving.
Ms Doble said she is incredibly proud of what the group has been able to achieve and hopes the success can continue abroad.
For more information or to donate the team’s cause, contact the school on 8762 6839 or email fountain.gate.sc@edumail.vic.gov.au.
