Media Release
Territory youth in battle of wits
Friday 9 September 2005
The Territory’s sharpest young minds will be at their analytical and creative best this Saturday 10 September for the Northern Territory regional finals of the ‘Tournament of Minds’. The problem-solving competition for school students will see 37 teams from Katherine, Nhulunbuy, Darwin, Palmerston and the rural area converge on Charles Darwin University.
The tournament will take place in Building 24 from 9.00am to 3.30pm, followed by an award ceremony in the Mal Nairn Auditorium at 4.00pm. Minister for Education, Employment and Training, The Hon Syd Stirling, will address the competitors and make presentations to the winners, who will then go on to compete in the Australian final held in Sydney next month.
Director of Tournament of Minds NT and Assistant Principal of Bakewell Primary School Nicky Honan said the competition aims to enhance the potential of our youth by developing diverse skills, enterprise, time management and the discipline to work collaboratively within a challenging and competitive environment.
She said the competition involves teams of students solving demanding, open-ended challenges from Maths/Engineering and Social Science. Teams of seven students from upper primary school through to Year 10 participate within the two divisions, primary and secondary.
“Teams are given the ‘challenge’ in the six weeks prior to Tournament Day at which they present their solution. This year’s challenges are titled Segments and Spans - in the Maths Engineering category - and Making a World of Difference - in the Social Science category,” she said. Teams also have to analyse and solve a ‘spontaneous problem’ on the day.
“Each of the challenges provides scope for the teams to present their solutions in a highly creative manner to a panel of judges who are drawn from the community as experts in their related fields.”
In 18 years Tournament of Minds has grown from a regional event in Victoria to a national program involving over 30 000 students under the patronage of the Honourable Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG .
The Tournament of Minds committee is a dedicated group of volunteers (most of whom work full-time in teaching positions or related fields) who work throughout the year to develop training programs for teachers, raise sponsorship, run the program on Tournament Day and organise for the winning teams to attend the Australian Finals in October.
The major sponsor for the Darwin event is the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET), with the generous support of Charles Darwin University, Malak School, Bakewell Primary School, Larrakeyah Primary and CSM Technology