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Think fast? Not an issue for Campbell's creative kids
By Jeanne Starmack
CAMPBELL
They made a mountain out of mashed potatoes, and now four Campbell Memorial High School students’ destination is not only imagination — it’s Knoxville, Tenn.
Photo
Campbell’s fast-thinking Destination ImagiNation team is getting ready to go to the Global Finals this month. From upper left are Samantha Arrowsmith, Silina Rivera, Roberto Serra and Josiah Banks.
In Knoxville later this month, the four will dazzle judges with their ability to think on their feet in the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals.
DI is all about problem solving, said Campbell’s school nurse and DI coach Mirta Arrowsmith as she and the team gathered Monday in the school’s media center. “It’s an academic program that requires creativity to solve a particular challenge,” she explained.
CMHS senior Roberto Serra, 18; junior Samantha Arrowsmith, 17; junior Silina Rivera, 16; and junior Josiah Banks, 17, constitute one of several DI teams from this area, or Region 1, that have advanced from the state competition April 17 to the global contest. It begins May 26 and runs through May 29 at the University of Tennessee.
Teams compete in one of four “challenges.” Some of the challenges involve building; some involve storytelling.
The Campbell team’s challenge has been to improvise a skit about an object that’s threatened or near extinction. Teams draw randomly from lists of elements that must be in their skit, so skits are never the same in the regional, state and global tournaments.
The team works well together — “we all click,” said Silina. It’s her and Josiah’s first year in DI.
Roberto is in his second year and enjoys the program as a natural extension of his interest in theater arts. “I’m no stranger to theater,” he said, explaining he’s been into it since the sixth grade.
Samantha, Mirta’s daughter, has been involved in DI since kindergarten.
“You’re able to use your brain in so many different ways,” said Samantha.
In Knoxville, they will compete against 80 other teams in their challenge.
At the state contest in Mount Vernon, where they competed against 17 other teams, Campbell used a mountain of mashed potatoes to destroy an obsolete invention — the VHS tape.
First, they chose randomly from 10 things that are nearing extinction or threatened, such as the tape, landline telephones and the Great Barrier Reef.
Then, they had to choose whether their thing should be saved or destroyed.
They chose to destroy it, because DVDs have made the tapes obsolete.
They decided to be secret agents on a mission to destroy the useless VHS.
But wait, it wasn’t that easy because of an element of randomness called “the unimpressive superpower” that had to be in the skit. Campbell’s assigned unimpressive superpower was the power to make mashed potatoes into mountains.
“In the land of DI, anything is possible,” explained Silina.
“We had to make a conflict,” said Josiah.
“I was the conflict,” said Silina. “I tried to prevent them from destroying the tape.”
“I challenged her to build a higher mountain of mashed potatoes, and I won,” said Samantha. “And she had to go away, and we got into the factory and destroyed the tape” in the skit.
Four other local Region 1 Destination ImagiNation teams qualified to attend the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals from May 26 to 29 in Knoxville, Tenn. Destination ImagiNation reaches students across the United States and in more than 30 countries. The schools are:
Badger High School: Participating in “Challenge A: DIrect DIposit” at the senior level. This is the team’s second year qualifying for Globals. The team is not going because of funding issues, however.
B.L. Miller Elementary School, Sebring: Participating in “Challenge B: DI-Bot” at the intermediate level.
Springfield High School: Competing in “Challenge C: You’re Gonna Flip!” at the senior level.
Chaney High School, Youngstown: Competing in “Project Outreach: Band Together” at the senior level.
Source: Area schools