Kujawa Education Center Students Give Valiant Effort at Regional Destination Imagination Competition

Kujawa Elementary students at the regional event.

The Kujawa Education Center — Kujawa EC/PK Center and Kujawa Elementary School — was well represented at the North Harris Regional Destination Imagination (DI) Competition March 1. While the two teams did not win, they made a valiant effort in their first DI competition.

Student teams from several school districts including Huffman, Humble, Klein, Spring, Tomball and Aldine competed in the Regional Destination Imagination Tournament held at Humble High School. Destination Imagination is known to inspire students to be creative problem solvers.

Teams, composed of anywhere from two to seven students, worked over the past few months on a challenge that required collaboration, problem solving and creativity. At the tournament, students presented their solution to a team of appraisers and competed in an instant challenge as well. Scores from the two challenges were combined to determine placement. The team from Kujawa EC/PK Center participated in the non-competitive level (preschool through second grade).

The Kujawa EC/PK Center team comprised by Ashton Ray, Clara D’Camp, Jesse Martínez and Andrea Morin displayed all the attributes of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Learner Profile — Kujawa EC/PK Center and Kujawa Elementary School offer the IB Primary Years Program. The five-year-old students competed in the Rising Stars Circus event. The students created their own version of the greatest show on Earth. Ring Master, Ashton, introduced Act I where the ferocious lions, Jesse and Clara, performed “dangerous tricks” like jumping through a “ring of fire” that was held by the lovely show girl played by Andrea. In Act II, the strongest people in the world demonstrated their lifting skills and tricks. In the final act, the students sang a song with the Ashton soliciting the audience’s participation to sing the second stanza.

“The Rising Koalas team wowed the audience and the judges with their imagination and what they could do,” said Linda Johnson, IB coordinator at Kujawa Elementary School.

The Soaring Eagles team from Kujawa Elementary School also demonstrated some creative thinking skills. The team was comprised of fourth graders Kristofer Dargin, Paris Dixon, Christina Duong, Alondra Guerrero, Michael Rivera and Jayla Stanford as well as Brooklyn Thompson, a second grade student. They had to use their critical thinking skills and creativity to come up with the solutions to a scenario that was given as well as creating the costumes and props for the event. The group also competed in the instant challenge where the team was assigned a random problem. Team members had to work together to find a solution.

“Destination Imagination was a learning experience,” said Johnson. “The students as well as their parents are already looking forward to next year’s competition.”

Pictured are Kujawa Education Center parents and students at the Regional Destination Imagination Competition.