Four Tauranga students are home after being named the best in their division at a major problem solving competition in the United States.

They represented New Zealand at the Future Problem Solving Programme International Conference, which attracts the best and brightest from across the globe.

Jack Andrews, Philip Kim, Loren McCarthy and Lydia Verschaffelt with their trophy at the University of Wisconsin.

This year over 2000 students participated in the event, held at the University of Wisconsin in the small town of La Crosse.

Year 11 students Jack Andrews and Philip Kim from Tauranga Boys' College and Loren McCarthy and Lydia Verschaffelt from Tauranga Girls' College were the four members of the winning team.

They won in the global issues future problem solving category for the middle division.

The students were given a future scenario where a disaster has occurred and have two hours to plan an emergency response.

Tauranga Boys' College teacher Keith Crawford coordinated and coached the team and says their success at the event is a major accomplishment.

'Our students were given a cyber attack scenario, but that was a bit of a red herring,” says Keith.

'What they really had to do was read through the future scene and work out what they considered to be issues or challenges and sort out what they consider to be the major one and then come up with 16 ways of solving it.”

Another mixed team of four from the two colleges also participated in the competition and was placed sixth.

Students not only have to be invited to participate in the competition, but also have to raise the money to travel there.

Robyn Verschaffelt's daughter was in the winning team and travelled to the United States with them.

'It's just an extraordinary win – it's absolutely amazing.

'They are competing against the best of the best so the kids have gone through a lot to represent New Zealand,” says Robyn.