Destination Imagination GLOBALS!

This year, students from a local high school in Ontario California participated in a program called Destination Imagination, a competitive global organization that encourages and values creativity and problem solving in real world contexts This year, four students from 10th and 11 grade, led by their coach, Lynda Vo, tackled a service learning challenge. The criteria for their challenge are outlined as follows by the organization:



Identify, design, plan and carry out a project that addresses a real community need.

Create a live presentation of a team-created fable that integrates information about the project.

Include an impact prop and a character that changes appearance.

Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents

Our team developed a plan to work with a program called Heal the Bay out of Southern California. We helped clean the beach of debris and then cataloged the items we found to add to a database.

The live presentation that they created was based on the block print, the Great Wave Off of Kanagawa by Hokusai. It features the story of Urashima and Kintaro, two generations who are affected by pollution in the ocean. It also includes a moving piece of spoken word poetry.

The team received first place at the state competition, receiving the highest possible score of 400/400!
 
Having received this recognition, the team now qualifies to compete at the DI global competition in Knoxville, Tennessee, www.globalfinals.org. At global finals, they will compete with 20,000 other students from over 5,000 teams from around the world. Students will have the opportunity to attend the Innovation Expo, STEAM showcase, and network with students on an international platform. These students need your support. Their school is a Title One school and has over 80% of the students living in poverty. 94% of the students at their school are minority.

There has never been a team that went on to a Global level competition in our area other than this one, yet these incredibly dedicated students overcame all of the obstacles in front of them to qualify for this prestigious competition, facing only one more:a lack of funding. The costs for the students and their coach are about $6000.
Please consider helping them make their dreams come true!