SRVCA Team Advances To Destination Imagination's State Finals

From SRVCA: A local elementary team, including three 4th grade students from San Ramon Valley Christian Academy, have received 1st place overall against 15 other teams in the Fine Arts category of Destination Imagination’s regional tournament and will advance to compete at the State Competition in April. They were also presented with a special “Renaissance Award” given to teams demonstrating outstanding performance, creativity and engineering design.

Team members include Juliana Clinton, Joshua Kessel, and Justus Kim from SRVCA, Michael Pinto from Bella Vista, and Briar Chang from John Baldwin.

“At SRVCA, we build a foundation for students to love, learn and lead," said SRVCA Principal Jamie Westgate. “Teaming up with students from other schools is an example of that, and makes these successes that much more gratifying."

Their team will compete alongside other advancing teams from across the state in the Fine Arts Elementary Level Challenge, “Game On”, one of seven, open-ended Challenges that require students to apply science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills, in addition to their talents in improvisation, theater arts, writing, project management, communication, innovation, and teamwork.

Destination Imagination is a leader in project-based learning opportunities that blend STEM education with the arts and social entrepreneurship. Its academic Challenges are student-directed and are designed to teach kids how to think, not what to think.

Each year, DI competitions begin with a regional tournament, where team solutions are assessed by a panel of trained Appraisers, ranging from educators to artists to engineers. Each team solution is scored on a variety of elements, including originality, workmanship, presentation and teamwork. Teams with the highest scores advance to the Affiliate (state or country) Tournaments. The top-tiered teams from the Affiliate Tournaments advance to Global Finals.

Image Courtesy of SRVCA