Destination ImagiNation is a team-oriented extracurricular activity that encourages students to utilize critical and creative thinking skills necessary for success in the workplace in the 21st century. Each year this volunteer-based international program helps students perceive challenges in life as opportunities for intellectual and emotional growth by providing teams of students with choices of 5 different “challenges” to “solve.”These Challenges are designed to complement and connect to the national educational learning standards in language arts, the sciences, the performing arts and social science.

The heart of the program is that only the students can create the “solution” to their chosen Challenge:the adults involved cannot tell the students what their “solution” should be, but rather they can only guide the students by questioning (using the Socratic method.) In this manner, students learn to work cooperatively and to value each team member’s contributions to the solution of the challenge. In March, teams present their solutions at tournaments at the local and state levels, then ultimately at the international level at the University of Tennessee at the end of May, where over 20,000 students ranging in ages from elementary to university, and from 40 different countries, compete in friendly rivalry.

For more information, visit http://www.idodi.org/