I recently wrote an article that states as leaders we need to protect and challenge our Scouts. In the section about challenging our Scouts I reviewed the benefits a ROPES course offered in team building, thinking “outside the box,” and offering physical challenges. One method for expanding the thought process is to provide an unlikely scenario and have the Scouts determine the resolution of the situation. They can only answer questions that can be answered with a Yes or No.

In the interest of generating some new thinking, I have outlined one scenario below. I will post a topic on the forum where questions can be asked and answers provided. We will continue until the puzzle is resolved.

Here is the scenario:

It’s a nice sunny day and you are walking along a country road. It hasn’t rained in days (it must be Texas). Up ahead you see a car parked on the side of the road. As you get closer you see someone is in the car. A woman is in her car on the side of the road. She has been shot. There is no gun in the car and all the doors are closed and locked. The keys are in the ignition. The windows are all fully raised and all are unbroken. She was not shot by the gunman who then closed and locked the doors and windows. She was shot while sitting in the car. How did she get shot?

There are a number of these situations that involve dead people. It’s not that these are morbid situations. It’s just that once the person is dead, the story can’t change much.

It’s interesting to watch the progression through the solution process. Sometimes the same question gets asked two or three times. Some questions are from way out in left field. But as the group learns to work together and learns from each other, they begin to think along different lines of thought. I think this is important for young people to learn. So much of their environment is structured for them. Play baseball- join Little League. Play football- join Optimist. No one creates their own entertainment anymore. Everything is structured. (I know part of this is resources. When I was young we could have a pick-up game at the park. Now all the fields are reserved for leagues.) At least in Scouts, troops are boy run. They plan the campouts, the hiking trips, the meals. Creative thinking.

If you have any more of these scenarios I would like you to send them to me. They make really interesting reading and are good mind exercises. If you like we will post the story on the forum and see what kind of results we can get. If the forum takes too long, we can set up a chat night where we have an on-line session devoted to solving these puzzles.