You've heard of spelling bees, quiz bowls, robotics competitions and science fairs. In fact, there is probably a special event for nearly every subject taught at school.
Destination ImagiNation is none of those things — and all of those things. Destination ImagiNation is a place where kids take what they know and what they are good at, and learn to apply it to solve challenges, working together and cooperatively with a team and pushing the limits of imagination to best not their competition, but themselves.
The Pagosa Imaginators 3, the DI team from Pagosa Springs Junior High School, beat out teams from across Colorado at the state DI competition April 26 in Littleton to win first place and land a spot in the global competition later this month. Continued...
The winning Pagosa Imaginators 3 performing at the Littleton competition last month.
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“They are just so, so first place — they rocked that competition,” said PS Junior High history teacher Sally High, DI coordinator, in an interview published in the Pagosa Springs SUN. High is the school district’s DI coordinator.
The Pagosa Imaginators 3 built and tested a scale model of the Trojan horse, a project which not only won first place, but also a special Renaissance Award
This is the first time a Pagosa team has qualified for the global competition, and they will travel to Knoxville, Tenn., May 21-25 to represent “Team Colorado” in a competition at the University of Tennessee. That competition will feature winning teams from all 50 states and more than 56 other countries.
Destination ImagiNation is a community-based, school-friendly program that builds participants' creativity, problem solving, and teamwork in enjoyable and meaningful ways. The yearly competition is organized by Glassboro, NJ, non-profit Destination ImagiNation Inc. Continued...
The Geekinators, representing the Pagosa Springs Intermediate School, also competed in the state competition.
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Teams of five to seven members work together to apply creativity, critical thinking and their particular talents to solve a Team Challenge. The Destination ImagiNation Team Challenge is a challenge that is solved over a period of eight weeks or more. There are five competitive Team Challenges from which teams may choose, each with its own educational focus. Each Team Challenge is designed to be open-ended and solvable in many ways and on many levels.
The team has already begun revising its performance, says High, and is practicing for the other challenges of the competition. The team will showcase its central “Hit or Myth” challenge, and will also participate in “Instant Challenges,” in which the team is given a new task and must meet the challenge, usually in just around five minutes. Continued...
The elementary school team, the Pagosa DI Nerds, also received respectable scores at teh state competition, says organizer Sally High.
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The Imaginators will also host a performance of their challenge project at the Archuleta County 50 Joint School Board meeting Tuesday, May 13, at 6pm. The public is invited to come to the junior high school library to watch the team before they head to the global competition.
The third- and fourth-grade Destination ImagiNation team, the Pagosa DI Nerds, and the fifth-grade team, the Pagosa Geekinators, also competed at the state competition. Both teams received very respectable scores, says High.
For more information about Destination ImagiNation, contact Sally High at the junior high, 264-2794. |