Three Grosse Pointe Teams Advance to Destination ImagiNation Global Finals
Teams Seek Donations to Make Trip Possible
History was made this past weekend at the State Championship for Destination ImagiNation (DI) in Mt. Pleasant as three teams from Grosse Pointe swept the competition and earned bids to represent Michigan at the Global Finals next month. Grosse Pointe South High School and Brownell Middle School took first place in their respective divisions, and Trombly Elementary took second. Never before in DI history have three teams from Grosse Pointe placed so highly and earned advancement to the Global Finals. With this success fueling their motivation they now embark on a time-crunched fund raising effort to reach the $15,000 necessary for all three teams to compete.
Destination ImagiNation is the world’s largest non-athletic team competition and offers kindergarten through university level students the unique opportunity to participate in challenging and motivating activities both inside and outside their regular curriculum. DI requires countless hours of after-school practice and challenges kids to problem solve on a major scale by using team building and creative thinking skills and presenting their solutions in a theatrical performance, all without any adult interference.
The Global Finals will be held on May 23rd in Knoxville, Tennessee and will include teams from over 38 states, all provinces of Canada, Mexico, and at least 11 other countries. The cost of the competition is $5000 per team and donations for the Grosse Pointe teams are being gratefully accepted to fund the Global Finals and to ensure the future of this valuable educational program.
The Grosse Pointe South Team is comprised of seven graduating seniors: TJ Altovilla, Liz Bielski, Sandra Bresnan, Molly Henning, Matt Hendershot, Alex McCoy and Peter Sabino, many of whom have been doing DI together for years. Their winning challenge at the State Competition was in the difficult “Improv” category and consisted of a theatrical skit portraying cultural traditions from three randomly selected countries. The students were responsible for researching the countries, choreographing the skit, creating the costumes and building the set, all within 30 minutes.
The five powerhouse girls of the Brownell Team, the “Hippy Cows”, are seventh-graders Lottie Ash, Kimberly Batchelor, Megan McCuen, Katie Murray, and eighth-grader Taylor Wizner with volunteer Coach Leslie Wizner. Their winning performance solved the mystery of how Planet Mercury was stolen through their ability to uncover crime clues using their creatively engineered “stereoscope” that sees pictures in 3D. Using theater, singing, costume design, set design, story development, engineering, properties of light, and construction of a set, they kept themselves busy from November until last week preparing for the competition. Like their high school counterparts, The Trombly Elementary team also researched six countries’ traditions and created costumes, props and sets from “found” materials. The children built an improvisational machine, the “TraDItionator” to transport them to China, Brazil and Germany where horrible events ensued and had them grateful to return home. Members of the Trombly team are fourth-grader Kelly Beardslee and fifth-graders Rachel Griffin, Jack McCoy and Neal Troscinski. The coaches are Bonnie McCoy and Renee Troscinski.
Tax-deductible donations will be gratefully accepted by writing a check to:
Desination ImagiNation
c/o Grosse Pointe Foundation for Public Education
389 St. Clair St.
Grosse Pointe, MI 48230
For more information about Destination ImagiNation please visit www.destinationimagination.org or contact any of the team managers below.
Contacts: Brownell: Leslie Wizner
313-530-0288
wizners@yahoo.com
Grosse Pointe South - Lynda Altovilla
313-530-1867
altovilla@comcast.net
Trombly – Bonnie McCoy
313-822-4758
blmccoy@yahoo.com |
