About us
Future Problem Solving is a program which was started in 1940 by Dr. Paul E. Torrence to provide students with a competitive and non-competitive way to learn about the future.
Global Issues Problem Solving is the largest and most popular component worldwide and within Illinois. It is based on a six step model, which allows students to make connections in and out of the classroom.
However, Illinois Future Problem Solving Bowl has also been committed to innovation, being one of the first states to adopt the Visual Art competition, even before our international parent.
In addition to this, we also offer programs in writing and performing short story scenarios which represent the students learning of the future, Community Problem Solving, and Individual Global Issues Problem Solving.
The Bucky Award
THE BUCKY" is an award honoring the many contributions of the inventor Buckminster Fuller, over a period of 50 years. Fuller developed many ideas and creative inventions that astounded people around the world. In providing a new solution for housing the world's increasing population, he developed his most famous invention the geodesic dome. He was always guided by the principle of solving the world's problems to procure more and more life support with less and less resources.
Fuller foresaw our current energy problems and championed renewable energy resources, especially solar and wind at a time when oil and coal were considered to be unlimited.
Some examples of such resourceful development of energy without using traditional sources are Fair Oaks Farm (they utilize the manure produced by thousands of dairy cows to generate methane gas to power and heat all of their buildings) or the Panama Canal utilizing forces of nature and rainfall to power the canal's lock system, perhaps the closest mankind has gotten to a perpetual motion system.
"THE BUCKY" is given at the State Bowl in years where the FPSB judges feel that there is an exceptionally creative problem/solution that Buckminster Fuller would have thought unique!
R. Buckmister Fuller Dome in Carbondale, IL
