PACE DI

Destination Imagination

Sneak Peak of 2007-2008 Problems

What is Destination Imagination?

DI is an international organization for kindergarten through college students that teaches life skills and expands imaginations through team-based creative problem solving. Teams of seven members work together with the support of a team manager to solve one of 5 challenges in a skit format.

Overview

Destination ImagiNation is an international creative problem-solving competition open to all PISD students. The PISD is one of many area school districts participating in the NExT Region. Competition guidelines and procedures are managed and updated by the DI organization; the most current information is found on-line at http://next.texasdi.org. The PISD establishes guidelines for its staff, parents, and students within the general philosophy and rules provided by the DI organization and the NExT Region.

Purpose

The purpose of DI is to develop life-long learning skills and team work while also providing participants the opportunity to develop such skills as:


persistence	creative problem solving
decision making	ownership of efforts and ideas
tenacity	conflict resolution
time management	higher order thinking skills
public speaking	risk taking

Team Formation

Participation in Destination ImagiNation is open to all PISD students. The numbers of students interested in participating on individual campuses will affect the number of teams that can be formed.

A team must consist of no fewer than 2 and no more than 7 members. It is recommended that teams consist of 5-7 members.

Teams are accepted on a first-come/first serve basis regardless of previous participation; returning teams do not receive preference regarding problem selection. Second memberships may be purchased by the campus to allow for additional teams.

Returning teams (teams that competed the previous school year) are allowed to remain together and may replace students as needed.

New teams will be formed from new participants.

Team members who participated the previous year and who now are enrolled in a different PISD school are eligible to participate on their former team IF space permits and all administrators agree.

Students from other memberships may join a team if space permits and all involved agree.

See current DI guidelines for additional information.

Teams unable to recruit a parent manager will be disbanded.

Competition takes place on an age-divisional basis. Age-divisions are determined by the oldest member of the team. Each problem specifies the divisions eligible for competition. See on-line resources for details. The divisions are:


Primary:	Kindergarten - 2nd grade
Elementary:	3rd – 5th grades
Intermediate:	6th – 8th grades
Secondary:	9th –12th grades

For more information on Destination Imagination, contact the following sites:


Destination Imagination	The National Website
Texas Creative Problem Solving	The State Website
*The NExT Region	The Regional Website

*Team Managers:
The NExT Website will have the information needed for your team. The problems, clarifications, regional training dates, as well as, tournament dates will be on this site.

For more information see the DI contact at your campus.
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