Students practise creative problem-solving

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This article was published 09/03/2005 (7600 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GRADE 6 student Chandra Bychuk now knows that tying several items together with a parachute is a great way to escape from a locked attic.

“We took everyone’s ideas and put them together,” she says.

Bychuk is one of 445 Arthur Day Middle School students who were surprised by a half day of creative problem solving on Feb. 25. Principal Greg Daniels says students had no idea staff were dressing up as characters from the book and movie A Series of Unfortunate Events — a tale of three orphans sent to live with a distant relative who is plotting to kill them and steal their fortune. Students were given problems to solve in teams — like how to break out of an attic if someone locks you in.

“It really is the higher level thinking skills,” Daniels says. “They’re presented with a problem and they have to work together to find a compromise.”

Teacher Brenda Hill-Yaschyshyn says the 14th-annual event also presented students with unusual problems like creating an original game and building a structure to rescue someone from a tower.

She says students were treated as if they were in an orphanage and that Daniels was the spitting image of Jim Carrey and even referred to students as “you miserable little things.”

She says students read A Series of Unfortunate Events as part of I Love to Read Month in February, and that activities tied in with the industrial arts and science curriculum. According to Hill-Yaschyshyn, 36 top students from the day will participate in two half days of problem solving in April following the theme the Amazing Race.

“Life is all about solving different problems,” she says. “It’s really applying the skills they’ve learned into potential real-life situations.”

Jordan Abraham, 11, says his problem solving ideas were inspired from the book.

The self-described science enthusiast says his team built a tower using different materials like toothpicks that held the weight of 50 pennies.

“When you read the book, you get lots of ideas and you build it,” he says.

Abraham says he’s already started reading the second book in the series, and says this year’s activities were definitely a hit.

“The theme was exciting,” he says. “It was really fun.”