Mount Pleasant Independent School District Destination Imagination (DI) teams competed in their first ever competition last Saturday at Poteet High School in Mesquite, Texas. There were 204 teams there from all over East Texas, many of them who had been competing in DI for several years.
“Our elementary students had a wonderful first tournament,” said MPISD teacher and Destination Imagination sponsor Jamie King. “Many parents and other family members attended the competition. The 4th grade Gear Grinders placed 8th while the 4th grade DI Inventors placed 9th. Our 3rd grade Chaos Creators placed 10th and 3rd grade Master Thinkers placed 13th. Our 2nd grade Rising Stars Team, Lightening Learners, earned “innovative and outstanding” from their appraisers. Each of the ten Lightening Learners team members received a medal for a job well done. We are looking forward to our next season.”
Destination Imagination is open to students from Kindergarten through college. The program has local, regional, state, national and international competitions that student teams may participate in.
“MPISD is pleased to be able to offer our students the opportunity to participate in Destination Imagination,” said Dr. Judi Saxton, MPISD Director of Communication. “The program is a fun, hands-on system of learning that fosters students’ creativity, courage and curiosity through the use of open-ended academic Challenges. DI touches on the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), fine arts and service learning. DI allows our students to learn patience, flexibility, persistence, ethics, respect for others and their ideas, and the collaborative problem solving process in a fun environment.”
Pictured: The 2nd Grade Rising Stars team in costume for the play they performed. The students came up with the characters on their own and wrote their own lines. Pictured are Alex Menhennet as the Butler, Claire Muskrat as the Queen of French Fry island, Ava True Fite as a famous swimmer, Mattie Merriman as a guard, Ricky Torres as a football player, Carter Cook as a football player, Avanee Gibson as a guard, Braden Adams as Boo – the scary man, Judson Colley as Boo’s friend and Neftali Delgado as Lady the dog. Also pictured is the MPISD DI sponsor Jamie King.