Brain exercises – Students expand their minds while having fun through Destination Imagination

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

– Albert Einstein

Two to three times a week, for two to three hours a night, a team of five Hamilton Middle School students gathers after school to exercise their minds.

By JANE RIDER of the Missoulian

They think creatively and solve problems, all the while enjoying the experience.

"You don’t have to work that long at it, but we just like doing it so we do," said Phillip Silcher, 12, a Hamilton seventh-grader. "It’s a lot of fun."

That’s Destination Imagination, one of the world’s largest creativity and problem-solving programs for youth of all ages. The idea is for kids to use what they’ve learned in the classroom in new and creative ways.

From kindergarten to college, teams of five to seven members are asked to solve one of five unique challenges with no adult assistance. Each of the five challenges offers participants an opportunity to explore engineering, architecture, drama and improvisation.

Here’s a sample of challenges this year:

"The Plot and the Pendulum" calls for creating a theatrical presentation that features two original stories. The tales begin the same, but split along the way and end differently.

"Cartoon Dimensions" entails creating an original cartoon story, complete with costumes and characters. The amazing, three-dimensional cartoon adventure comes to life with team-generated sound and visual special effects.

"GuessDImate" (and no that’s not a typo) calls for building a structure of wood and glue and estimating how many pounds of weight it can hold. The team wins bonus points if its estimate is close. It gathers the data it will need by building and breaking many structures until the team’s guesses are on the mark.

The challenges foster creative problem solving, teach teamwork, reward divergent and critical thinking, encourage experimentation and employ time management, said Kathleen Dent, regional director of western Montana teams that are now beginning to organize for upcoming competitions.

Dent works with team managers from Frenchtown to Darby and is looking for more parents to volunteer for the job. The program operates independently of the regular school day, although schools oftentimes provide work space for teams or pay for memberships.

"Most of the team formation comes from parents, and parents usually end up being the team managers," Dent said.

Silcher’s team went to state last year in a competition called "Change in Direction." Teams had to build a device that did different tasks and build a story about their creation, explaining what it did and why. Then they acted out the story like a play, he said.

"I enjoyed working really hard on a project and going to state with it," he said. "We did so well."

The team came in third at state and is ready to roll again this fall. The regional competition is in February and state is in March. National and international finals follow.

"We all had a good time," he said. "It was fun working together, so we decided to do it again this year."

Ironically, Silcher’s team initially couldn’t find an adult manager, Dent said.

"But this was a team that wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer," she said. They kept at it until they found one parent who said OK. They were really motivated to do it."

Teams usually form in three different age groups: grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

Zander Smith, 10, a fourth-grader at Grantsdale Elementary in Hamilton, got involved in Destination Imagination as a third-grader. Last year’s challenge entailed building something out of scraps in four minutes. The team had to explain what it constructed and how it worked.

"We built a time machine," Smith said.

"You get to meet a lot of new people and they become your friends," he said. "You learn a lot of different things and that helps you in school a whole bunch."

"The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that it gives them so much more confidence for getting up in front of people to present themselves and their ideas," Dent said. "It also helps them think on their feet."

When they are willing to do that, those skills open up opportunities for them.

"If they can take the risk first in their small group, they can build their confidence to present in front of larger groups," she said. "I would love to see more kids get involved."

http://missoulian.com/articles/2003/10/05/news/mtregional/news08.txt