Four District 58 Teams Advance to Global Destination Imagination Competition

Submitted by Downers Grove Grade School District 58. Photo 1: Sleepy Ninjas. Photo 2: Imagination Volcanos. Photo 3: That One Team. Photo 4: DI Donuts.

Four teams from Downers Grove Grade School District 58 demonstrated their quick thinking and creativity at the recent state Destination Imagination tournament, qualifying for its prestigious global competition next month! Congratulations to the DI Donuts, Team Imagination Volcanoes and That One Team, all from Whittier School, as well as the Sleepy Ninjas from Pierce Downer School.

Destination Imagination is an international program that encourages teams of students to complete challenges related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), the arts and service learning. It hosts annual competitions at the regional, state and global level. In District 58, school PTAs organize the program.

“Our participants learn patience, flexibility, persistence, ethics, respect for others and their ideas, and the collaborative problem-solving process,” said Colleen Loftus, Destination Imagination coordinator for Pierce Downer.

Destination Imagination teams form months in advance. The competition provides a list of challenge categories, and each team selects one challenge to complete. They prepare a creative solution and present it at the competition. In addition, each team completes an “Instant Challenge” to test their quick critical thinking skills.

DI Donuts, Whittier, took first place overall and will advance in the Elementary Fine Arts - Feary Tales category. Team Imagination Volcanoes, Whittier, will also advance in the Feary Tales category, but at the middle school level. Both teams created a fairy tale about a character who faces a phobia. They were given a complex rubric and worked for months to create an eight-minute presentation and solution to their challenge.

“This is the fourth year these sixth grade girls have competed together, and they could not be more excited to attend the Global Finals competition in May,” said Lisa McTigue, parent manager of Team Imagination Volcanoes.

DI Donuts team members include Emily Allen, Libby DeCero, Natalie Folkening, Hope Johnson, Ellie Kist and Ellie Watt. Team Imagination Volcanoes team members include Abbie Peterson, Abbie Folkening, Sammi Joyce, Lily Johnson, Hannah Schultz, Katie Figliomeni and Grace McTigue.

Sleepy Ninjas, Pierce Downer, will advance in the Improvisational - The Improv Games category. Their team prepared six improvisational games and six street performances, incorporating unexpected situations into each. At the tournament, the team was given one minute to prepare one improv game, one street performance and one randomly-selected situation.

Sleepy Ninjas team members include Ronan Krohnert, Christopher Amidei, Robert Luby, Jack Oakes and Thomas Covey.

That One Team, Whittier, will advance in the Technical – Creature Feature category. Their team built a creature and used technical methods to describe the creature’s adventurous imaginary world. The team created and presented two elements that showed their interests, skills, areas of strength and talents.

Team members in That One Team include Nolan Brezina, Aidan Grisenthwaite, Claire Mathews, Alexa Moy, Sam Stein and Jackson Travers.

The Global Destination Imagination competition will take place May 20-23 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn. Good luck District 58 participants!

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