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  3. Quick Start Guide: Community Projects
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  2. Community Projects
  3. Quick Start Guide: Community Projects

Quick Start Guide: Community Projects

Welcome

New? Find everything you need to know to get started with our Community Projects program and get to work preparing for the Future Problem Solving competition season.

Program overview
Our Community Projects program goes well beyond a typical service project to equip students with lifelong skills as they turn interests into action and lasting impact.

Getting Started

  1. Get familiar with how Community Projects works
  2. Learn about project requirements
  3. Review an example of student work with evaluation
  4. Develop your plan for supporting student projects

1. How Community Projects works

In the Community Projects program, students learn to thoroughly research and analyze a real world issue area. Then, they apply our proven 6-step problem-solving method to develop a project plan and take action.

Review your local FPS calendar

FPS Community Projects Season at a Glance Schedule

2. Project requirements

Students identify a real world problem or area of concern they want to address in a community of their choosing. Then, students use our problem-solving process to develop their project proposal. They implement their project’s action plan while documenting their progress in a project report. Students also submit supporting materials and may participate in an interview during in-person competitions.

3. What student work looks like

Students showcase their work at FPS regional finals. Champions are invited to showcase their work at our world finals event each June.

  • Project video examples

Coaching Tool Tip
Our Community Projects champions publications offer new coaches a wealth of resources to use with student. What’s inside:
– Step-by-step introduction: Step instructions, how to’s, student tips, and helpful resources links
– What an evaluator looks for: Scoring breakdown and scoring rubric
– Meet the winners: Photos and biographical information
– Student Examples: Submissions include project proposals, reports, portfolios (sample pages), displays (photos), promotional videos (links), and interviews (evaluations only)
– Evaluation Examples: Side-by-side display of scores for two evaluations and curated comments from evaluators
Learn more

4. Top tools for coaching

This Resources Library has free tools to help students get started with planning their stories. Use these tools to give your students a strong base as they research their topics and organize their findings.

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April Michele

April Michele Bio

Executive Director

A seasoned educator, April Michele has served as the Executive Director since 2018 and been with Future Problem Solving more than a decade. Her background in advanced curriculum strategies and highly engaging learning techniques translates well in the development of materials, publications, training, and marketing for the organization and its global network. April’s expertise includes pedagogy and strategies for critical and creative thinking and providing quality educational services for students and adults worldwide.

Prior to joining Future Problem Solving, April taught elementary and middle grades, spending most of her classroom career in Gifted Education. She earned the National Board Certification (NBPTS) as a Middle Childhood/Generalist and later served as a National Board Assessor for the certification of others. She was trained and applied the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) in Humanities, which helped widen the educational scope and boundaries beyond the U.S. In addition, April facilitated the Theory and Development of Creativity course for state level certification of teachers. She has also collaborated on a variety of special projects through the Department of Education.

A graduate of the University of Central Florida with a bachelor’s in Elementary Education and the University of South Florida with a master’s in Gifted Education, April’s passion is providing a challenging curriculum for 21st century students so they are equipped with the problem solving and ethical leadership skills they need to thrive in the future. As a board member in her local Rotary Club, she facilitates problem solving in leadership at the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA). She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute and earned her certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Edyth Bush Institute at Rollins College.