Unlocking Creativity: Destination Imagination Program Overview

Destination Imagination Destination Imagination

What is Destination Imagination? The Destination Imagination (DI) program encourages teams of learners to have fun, take risks, focus, and frame challenges while incorporating STEM with the arts, and service learning. Participants learn patience, flexibility, persistence, ethics, respect for others and their ideas, and the collaborative problem solving process. Up to seven participants (preK 12thgrade) work together as a team to create their unique solution to a Team Challenge, which can have a focus that is theatrical, structural, improvisational, scientific or technical or a combination of any of these disciplines. All programs are Challenge based, and they teach the creative process from imagination to innovation. The goal is to help student teams learn to be creative in every aspect of their lives.

What is Destination Imagination? DI is an activity that allows kids to take what they know and what they are good at and learn to apply it to solve challenges but also encourages participants to be CREATIVE and think outside the box. The DI Challenge Program teaches students acceptance, tolerance and respect through team building Challenges. DI programs are active in 48 states and over 30 countries. DI is a Globally recognized program that recognizes participants with college scholarships.

DI at West Platte First introduced as part of the ALPS curriculum in 2001. In the fall of 2003, the program was opened up to all students. Parent volunteers were enlisted to help manage teams. In 2004 DI was eliminated from the ALPS curriculum, but participation continued with parent volunteers Participation has grown from 2 teams to 8. Last year 46 preK High School West Platte students participated in DI (approximately 8% of the West Platte population). West Platte teams have been very successful, with the majority of teams qualifying for State competition each year , and 12 teams over the past 7 years qualifying to compete internationally internationally at Global Finals.

DI at West Platte DI is not currently recognized as a school sponsored activity, due to the lack of a paid sponsor and management by parent volunteers, but the program has been supported by the school since first introduced to the school in 2001. West Platte has supported DI by paying for team registration, as well as regional and state tournament fees since 2001. West Platte has donated money to help send teams to Global Finals.

The Future of DI at West Platte Becoming a fully recognized school sponsored activity will allow the program to grow. A West Platte sponsor could help enlist teacher involvement and manage parent volunteers to serve more kids and to allow even more participation. As the only preK-12thGrade extra-curricular activity, DI is a program that all students can participate in. DI promotes team work and the collaborative process and would complement our current character building program.

DI Proven Results! In 2011, researchers from the University of Virginia Curry School of Education conducted an independent research evaluation of the DI program. The evaluation focused on the program s effectiveness, impact and participant satisfaction in areas relating to creative problem-solving, creative and critical thinking, teamwork and leadership. Among other findings, the researchers reported, Students who participated in the activities and tournaments provided by DI outperformed comparable students who had not participated in DI on assessments measuring creative thinking, critical thinking, and collaborative problem solving. ************ To learn more about DI, visit www.idodi.org