Middle School Teams Pitch Big Ideas at ISABC Future Prize

Two teams of SMUS Middle School students travelled to Vancouver Mar. 3 with a challenge: identify a real problem affecting their peers and propose a solution in just two minutes.

Competing in the ISABC Future Prize at York House School, Grade 7 students Isla, Callia and Alma and Grade 8 students Clara, Noah and Julia joined 11 teams from independent schools across British Columbia for a day of design challenges.

Accompanied by Assistant Director of Academics for the Middle and Junior Schools Julie Harris and Digital Skills Specialist Lindsey Ashton, the students put their ideas to the test in a high-energy competition focused on creativity, empathy and problem solving.

By the end of the day, the Grade 8 team’s idea earned the People’s Choice Award, voted on by fellow participants and judges.

Understanding Academic Stress

In the weeks leading up to the competition, the Grade 7 team focused on academic stress and challenges with focus among middle school students. After surveying classmates and teachers, they began exploring why school pressure can feel especially intense during the middle years.

When the students compared the results, they noticed a disconnect. While many students pointed to academic pressures as their main source of stress, teachers were more likely to assume the pressure came from social issues or extracurricular commitments.

That finding led the team to explore adolescent brain development and how middle schoolers process stress differently than older students.

“Our brains aren’t fully developed yet,” said Callia, “So smaller things can seem bigger to us. When something like a math test gets added on top of everything else, it can feel huge.”

At the competition, their work led to a concept called SOS: Skills, Outdoor Ed, Study: a weekly Wednesday afternoon block where students could rotate through practical lessons, dedicated study time and Outdoor Education experiences, providing tools for managing workload while also giving students time to decompress.

Reimagining Social Media Use

The Grade 8 team turned its attention to another issue affecting many teenagers: the impact of social media on real-world connection.

Through surveys and discussion, they noticed a familiar tension. While teens value social media, many also recognize how easily it can interrupt face-to-face interaction.

Julia said she began thinking more seriously about the issue after noticing people sitting together in restaurants but spending the entire time scrolling on their phones.

The team’s solution was disCONNEKT, a conceptual app that would temporarily disable selected social media platforms when users are physically together in shared spaces such as restaurants. Emergency contacts would remain accessible, but scrolling apps would pause, encouraging people to focus on the moment and the people around them.

The Challenge Day

Across the competition, teams tackled a wide range of community issues, from recycling and composting to traffic concerns and support for the unhoused. In timed exercises, students generated dozens of ideas in rapid bursts before narrowing them down to a final concept and presenting it to judges.

For the SMUS teams, the experience meant bringing their ideas about academic stress and social media into the design process and learning to think on their feet as their concepts evolved. Like all participants, they saw how even in a short window of time, thoughtful solutions can begin to emerge.

For the Grade 7 team, the irony of presenting an idea about reducing academic stress while working under the intense pressure of a timed competition was not lost.

For the Grade 8 team, it also meant returning to Victoria with medals and recognition from their peers for an idea that struck a chord.