Students on the Rosa Parks Elementary School Destination Imagination “The Green Dragons” team took time to cheese for the camera. The team won the DaVinci Award for outstanding creativity during the recent state competition. Pictured are from left to right Kiara Robichaud, Cameron Maloney, Michael Naish, Shamik Chandrachood, Claire McDermott, and Hannah Wang and Coach Jennifer Robichaud. Team member Jasmine Ahmad is not pictured.New program brings out kids’ “ImagiNation”
Thirty eight students on six teams at Rosa Parks Elementary School recently brought home medals while competing in the state Destination ImaginaNation tournament.
The program is new to Fayette County, and Rosa Parks Elementary is the second school in Lexington to participate. While DI has competitions at every level, kindergarten through college, Rosa Parks is gearing their program for the younger set in kindergarten through second — The Rising Stars. Destination Imagination is a problem-solving program that helps young people learn how to work and grow together as a team. Practicing and competing nurtures mutual self respect while enhancing students’ self-confidence and problem solving skills.
Thirty eight students on six teams at Rosa Parks Elementary School recently brought home medals while competing in the state Destination ImaginaNation tournament.
The program is new to Fayette County, and Rosa Parks Elementary is the second school in Lexington to participate. While DI has competitions at every level, kindergarten through college, Rosa Parks is gearing their program for the younger set in kindergarten through second — The Rising Stars. Destination Imagination is a problem-solving program that helps young people learn how to work and grow together as a team. Practicing and competing nurtures mutual self respect while enhancing students’ self-confidence and problem solving skills.
“I am thrilled to find a fun, yet academic, after school activity specifically geared for the lower primary students,” said Leslie Thomas, principal at Rosa Parks Elementary. “The feedback I have received has been overwhelmingly positive from students, parents, and teachers. The kids are enjoying themselves and learning a great deal, which benefits everyone.”
The open-ended challenges allow for a wide variety of solutions and a sense of accomplishment for the team. As part of the process, the participants develop critical thinking and creative problem solving skills. Each group is led by a team manager who is either a parent or adult volunteer.
“We have found that through this program, students are really thinking through challenges and using those skills to figure out practical, real-life problems,” said Jodi Dodd, who coordinates the program at Rosa Parks. “You can see the ‘light turn on’ when they understand that there are many ways to attack a problem — and there is no ‘right’ answer. The students are building confidence knowing they have a team to stand with them.”
Each of the challenges offers a different focus, such as mathematics, technical design and construction, experimentation, theater arts, social studies, research, story development, architecture, geography, structural engineering or other disciplines requiring critical thinking skills necessary to be successful in college, the workplace and in tomorrow’s world.
For more information about Destination Imagination, please visit http://www.idodi.org/ or contact Jodi Dodd at jodidodd@gmail.com.
