April 07, 2008

Stolley Park Elementary students qualify for international Destination ImagiNation competition

Fourth- and fifth-graders from Stolley Park Elementary School have qualified for international Destination ImagiNation competition May 23 through May 26 in Knoxville, Tenn.

Members of the Stolley Park team are Blake Coen, Rily Rathje, Nathan Boon, Sydney Armstrong, Bayley Gardner, and Brady Brokaw, said Lori Coen, a manager for the group.

The Stolley Park students advanced to Destination ImagiNation's Global Finals after participating in two levels of competition. The 10,000 participants who qualify for the Global Finals have emerged from a field of 350,000 participants.

This is the third year that a team from Stolley Park Elementary School has qualified for the international competition in Knoxville, Tenn.

Students from throughout the United States and more than 11 countries, including Turkey, Brazil, Poland, China, Mexico, and Guatelama, will participate in the Global Finals at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The Destination ImagiNation program runs annually and presents students working in teams of up to seven with the opportunity to choose from five Team Challenges. While each Team Challenge integrates creative problem solving, Challenges usually feature one prominent task, such as building a load-bearing structure, creating a vehicle, writing a performance piece, or exploring history.
This year's Destination ImagiNation challenges include: Obstacles of Course, Hit or Myth, DI've Got a Secret, Chorific, and Switch. The Stolley Park students will compete in the DI've Got a Secret division. The program also provides Instant Challenges in which teams work together to solve shorter Challenges within minutes. Besides encouraging and teaching critical thinking and teamwork, these Instant Challenges promote the development of improvisational and quick-thinking skills.

More information about Destination ImagiNation is available at: http://www.destinationimagination.org

For more information, contact: Lori Coen, Destination ImagiNation manager, coen_lori_l@lilly.com, (308) 382-8282; Carrie Kolar, principal, Stolley Park Elementary School, (308) 385-5913, ckolar@gips.org
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