Great Thinkers

I spent Sunday at the University of NSW, volunteering as a judge at 'Tournament of Minds' state finals. I was blown away with the maturity, creativity and confidence of these teams of 10-12 year old's. They had three hours to prepare a dramatic solution to a challenge, with a bag of masking tape, cardboard, paper plates and pens for making props and costumes. The question? What needs saving today, why is it deserved, what obstacles would be faced, how would they be overcome. One team decided that a community that would not express its feelings needed saving; another, that New York City needed 'hope' returned to it; one team felt that modern families needed saving by a return to older values; several teams used the environment, in different ways, to present their solution. My favourite was the team that used chocolate as a metaphor for coal - they created a country that used chocolate as a food and energy source but were so greedy that they kept eating it until it ran out! They were 'saved' by a mad scientist who invented a renewable alternative.
Gotta love this generation...