Three of the eight teams representing New Hampshire at Destination Imagination Global Finals reached the top 15 in the world: Conant High School in Jaffrey (7th place), Riddle Brook School from Bedford (9th place with a special top award), and Pinkerton Academy in Derry (12th place). Auburn Village School finished in 17th. NH-DI saw strong finishes from teams from Hooksett, Bow High School, Indian River School in Canaan, and Inter-Lakes in Meredith. Each team competed with teams from virtually every state and 15 countries in their Challenge and age group.
Bedford’s Riddle Brook School topped all teams in their bracket for Instant Challenge scores. The “IC” portion of the tournament measures a team’s ability to think on their feet, create a unique solution and deliver results in real-time.
The non-profit Destination Imagination holds the annual Global Finals competition as a culmination of the program year where over 100,000 students in over 30 countries. Teams compete in Challenges that have a focus that is Technical, Scientific, Engineering, Fine Arts, Improvisational, or Service Learning. New Hampshire Destination Imagination is a Granite State based non-profit that runs the competition locally.
Leading up to the Global Finals competition, these teams started developing their solutions in the fall, then besting over 100 New Hampshire teams through NH Regional and Statewide competition. Challenges are designed to test the student team’s creativity, problem-solving skills, ability to collaborate and innovate over short and long time periods. All solutions are fully team developed and created.
“As someone who has gone to Global Finals as a team member, I can confidently say that there are no words big enough to describe the experience”, according to Talee Messenger, NH-DI Alumna and volunteer PR coordinator. “Seeing teams from across the world compete in the challenges, in different languages and solving the challenges in ways you could have never imagined, is so special. It shows that hard work, creativity, and imagination has no language barrier. It’s truly something spectacular to experience.”
With the need for greater skills in collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving, Destination Imagination’s challenge based learning program proves to empower students for the emerging workplace and workspace.