TJ/GW celebrates their win after regionals. photo courtesy of Yvonne Kellar-Guenther
The Thomas Jefferson/George Washington Destination Imagination team makes their way to Globals.
Destination Imagination (DI) is a volunteer-led educational organization that teaches 21st century skills to all levels of students from kindergarten through university levels through creative and collaborative problem solving challenges. DI’s goal is to enhance students’ skills in creative and critical thinking, team building, problem solving, project management, perseverance, and self-confidence. Many students around the country participate in DI to help improve on these skills, as well as to make friends and be able to express their creativity. The organization helps students display their talents in these fields and has allowed the Thomas Jefferson/George Washington (TJ/GW) DI team to express their creativity in front of a large group of students with their same passions at DI Globals.
Throughout the school year, the TJ/GW DI team has been hard at work perfecting their project in order to compete to make their way to DI Globals. This year, they participated in the scientific challenge, one of seven group challenges. Their task was to make a theatrical play building off of the current theme of DI, camouflage. The team was required to create a story around one central concept and generate all of the aspects themselves, such as the script, props, costumes, and sets. Camy Guenther, sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School, is a part of the team that earned third place at the DI State competition on April 9th, qualifying them for DI Globals. Guenther has been participating in DI for almost seven years, and she is excited to take her skills that she has learned from past years in DI to Globals to represent TJ. Guenther said, “We have to start from the bottom up. We take this concept that is given to us and build a story and idea off of it and I think it’s really cool that we get the chance to see other people’s ideas from around the world.” Globals qualifiers will get the chance to show others the skills they have gained from DI through plays or skits that they created themselves and instant challenges that show their teamwork and problem solving skills.
DI Globals will be held from May 23rd to May 27th in Knoxville, Tennessee. At Globals, the team will perform their play to judges as well as participate in an instant challenge in which they are presented a problem that they need to solve. Only a few days of the week at Globals are dedicated to competing, while the rest of the days are reserved for celebration and presenting performances to students from around the world who have found an interest in the same activities. Guenther and her group will be taking the skills they have acquired to Tennessee to represent their schools and to present their accomplishments to students from all around the globe. The skills that these students have acquired can help carry them into strong careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) because of the strong emphasis that DI places on these core subjects and the creative processing and thinking that they require.
