Turn the Tide: How Your Middle-Grade Students Can Tackle One of Tomorrow’s Greatest Challenges

Imagine Miami’s bustling downtown streets transformed into waterways. Fifteen million people displaced by flooding in Thailand’s capital city of Bangkok. Entire Pacific Island nations disappearing beneath the ocean waves.

This isn’t science fiction—these are real risks of rising sea levels, a global issue our students will inherit and must learn to address.

When it comes to education, we often wonder how to expand abstract concepts beyond textbooks, making them more tangible and relevant. Future Problem Solving makes a point of accomplishing this with all their resources, helping students hone their critical thinking skills, and their 2025 World Solutions Challenge is no exception.

This year, middle-grade students from around the world are tasked with exploring how rising sea levels might impact coastlines, industries, and people’s lives. But they’re not just evaluating environmental science concepts. They’re engaging with data analysis, working on communication skills in teams, deciding how to best present their ideas, and—central to the program—learning how to solve problems.

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The Cross-Curricular Power of Problem-Solving

When we teach problem-solving through real-world issues, we’re helping students build critical thinking abilities that will strengthen their performance across all subjects. Students learn to ask the right questions, research systematically, think creatively, and develop actionable solutions. These skills enhance everything, from writing compelling essays to designing science experiments.

Future Problem Solving makes this simple by guiding students through a 6-step process, from identifying the problems to developing an action plan.

Their approach reflects how change happens in the real world, where problems are nuanced and require a wide variety of experts working together to solve them. Environmental issues affect economics, which influences politics, which shapes technology development, which impacts social structures. What works as a solution for one area might negatively impact another.

Students who compete in the World Solutions Challenge learn how to evaluate the world around them, consider new angles and perspectives, formulate solutions where there is no single correct answer, and effectively communicate their findings.

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How to Get Started in the 2025 World Solutions Challenge

The World Solutions Challenge welcomes students with no prior Future Problem Solving experience, making it accessible for any classroom or homeschool environment. The important details to know are:

• The Challenge is open internationally.
• Students in grades 5-6 (ages 10-12) are invited to compete in the junior division. 
• Students in grades 7-8 (ages 12-14) are invited to compete in the middle division. 
• Teams may consist of 2-4 students, and the entry fee is $100 per team.
• An adult must serve as the primary registration contact but is not responsible for teaching or coaching.
• Participants will use FPSOnline, an interactive, collaborative online platform, to learn about rising sea levels, practice the 6-step process, and submit their final product. 
• The competition takes place over a self-paced, flexible 3-week window, from September 29-October 20.

The challenge format adapts perfectly to various learning styles and settings—as a classroom assignment, an extracurricular activity, an addition to homeschooling practices, or a program to enhance academic clubs or groups. Teams can complete their work in fewer, more intensive sessions, or in shorter meetings throughout the challenge window.

For the modest entry fee, participants receive comprehensive support, including challenge outlines, suggested timelines, topic introductions, learning resources, and instructional videos. The fee also covers professional evaluation and detailed feedback on action plan submissions.

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Preparing Students for Tomorrow

Today’s students will be tomorrow’s engineers, urban planners, policy makers, and innovators. We can’t wait to see the innovative solutions they develop!

Registration for the Future Problem Solving 2025 World Solutions Challenge closes on September 12th.

Engage your students with one of the defining challenges of their generation while building skills that will serve them across subjects and throughout their lives!

Ready to dive in? Register now: https://resources.futureproblemsolving.org/article/world-solutions-challenge-2025/