Tournament of Minds

On 19 August, Berwick Grammar School sent two teams to participate in the Tournament of Minds Competition, held at Deakin University in Burwood. This exciting competition aims to develop critical thinking, teamwork, risk-taking and inquiry based problem solving in young minds. It is a rare opportunity for students across year levels to work collaboratively together.

Our Engineering and Mathematics group were required to build a rigged lottery machine, to determine who would be saved in the event of an apocalypse. Their creative response to the challenge incorporated a full cast of rather sinister sock puppets.

Our Social Sciences group dealt with the challenge of uniting two countries (India and China) and exploring what the cultural landscape of this new fictitious nation would look like. This dramatic performance was entertaining from start to finish, and expertly captured the complexity of what constitutes culture.

Both groups also had to provide a response to a mysterious spontaneous challenge, testing the limits of their quick, critical thinking.

The boys did very well in this competition, having dedicated many lunchtimes and afterschool session preparing for this event.