Bath County Students Compete In Destination Imagination Event Saturday

Crozet, VA – On Saturday five teams of students from Bath County will travel to Crozet Virginia for a Destination Imagination competition. Kim Manion is a fourth grade teacher at Millboro Elementary and she manages the Millboro team and a team at Bath County High School.

“I think Destination Imagination is something people don’t understand.” Says Manion. “I think it’s something that people think only the really smart kids or or only the geeks can do, and that’s really not true. It is amazing to see how mnay different ideas come out on competition day.”

There will be about 100 teams competing on Saturday from the Jefferson Region of Virginia, which is one of seven Destination Imagination regions in the state. Two teams from Valley Elementary will compete, one team from Millboro and two teams from Bath County High School.

“Destination Imagination is a teamwork, problem solving organization” she says. “They do a theater type challenge, they do two different building type challenges; they do a science-theater challenge, and they do a complete improve challenge.”

She says they pick a particular challenge and work on if for about four months prior to the competition. Manion is a team manager. There are no coaches in Destination Imagination. The team manager can assist and ask questions, but can never tell the team members what to do.

Destination Imagination develops critical thinking skills and the ability to work with other people. Destination Imagination is available for all ages from kindergarten to high school. Students practice two to four hours per week, where they have to be working together as a team. One of the teams from Bath County High School has been going to competitions since they were 4th and 5th graders, they’re now 10th and 11th graders.

“The teams have meeting and deciding what they want to put together for their skit” says Manion. “They’ve been building scenery, coming up with their costumes. They’ve had to do research and they’ve been building. They also have to prepare for a second part at the competition called an instant challenge; you might be given something like aluminum foil, newspaper, paperclips, pipe cleaners and straws and you have to use that to build a tower or a bridge. And you have anywhere from two to five minutes to complete whatever challenge you’re given.”

The Destination Imagination competition is Saturday March 12 at Western Albemarle High School. Teams that place first and second in their challenges will move on to the state tournament in April. For more information contact Kim Manion at Millboro Elementary at 997-5452.