Annie Wright Day School had four teams qualify for the Destination Imagination State Championship in Wenatchee in April. One of them, the AWS Awesome Armadillos, a group of six fifth graders, earned first place in the Fine Arts category, and traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee, for the DI Global Finals in May. Representing our school and our state, the Awesome Armadillos placed fourth, out of 78 teams from around the world, in the “In Disguise” Challenge.

 

Destination Imagination is a non-profit organization that fosters collaborative problem solving through imagination and innovation. DI teams are encouraged to have fun, take risks and embrace challenges while incorporating science, technology, math, the arts and service learning. Teams showcase their solutions at competitive tournaments, which Annie Wright has attended since the 1980s. Grade 2 teacher Jean Young has been instrumental in the Destination Imagination organization and Annie Wright’s participation in it.

 

Annie Wright’s Awesome Armadillos – Henry Carroll, Emily Perrin, Geoffrey DalBalcon, Michele Foster, David Cho, and Eric Holland – took part in the In DIsguise challenge. Among other parameters, students were required to make masks and develop a skit that included a character in disguise, using no oral dialogue. Working from November to April, the students developed a performance that involved elaborate costumes, masks that transformed through inner mechanisms, and a creative plot involving a squid disguised as a fisherman, a buried treasure, an evil fish god and a judicious sea goddess.

 

“It was amazing to see this group of students, who have diverse interests, talents and learning styles, collaborate on this project,” said their faculty advisor, Annie Wright Day School science teacher Emily Russell. “I was impressed by their creativity, self-awareness and problem-solving skills, not to mention their great senses of humor.”