Remember my DI post? Well, it’s been a month and it’s time for the next part of DI….
Provincials!
Destination Imagination is an immersive experience where kids come up with solutions to complex challenges. It helps kids gain skills like creativity, teamwork, and collaboration. Kids who do Destination Imagination are more confident in front of audiences, and more inquisitive. You can learn more about its advantages here.

There are five steps in the DI process.

The first step is to Recognise. This means to get an understanding of DI and your challenge.

 

My group’s challenge was to create a musical, complete with two acts, music and lyrics, a set change, a change in plans, and some sort of spectacle. We also had to have two team choice elements. These could be anything that showed off my group’s interests and skills.

The second step is to Imagine. This is the stage where the ideas are created. We had to repeat every stage from here to the end for Provincials.

Our challenge solution was originally about a random dude and two sisters who fell off a cruise ship, and were stuck on a desert island together. They didn’t really know how to get home until the younger sister, Evie, shows up at the island with a boat after being sent out for food one night.

The third step is to Initiate and Collaborate. During this stage, group members work together to create their challenge solution.

We created a backdrop to project on out of PVC pipes and a sheet. The costumes came from a thrift store that we visited together. We made the boat together using materials we found in our school.

When we improved our challenge solution, we created a palm tree and a steering wheel to hide the projector out of household materials and things I found at RONA.

Step four is to Assess. At this stage, we figure out what works in our challenge solution and what doesn’t. We did a lot of this after Regionals.

This is our most recent performance. We switched the roles, so that I would be Heather, a single mother, Nik would be the narrator, and Roger, who hadn’t been in the story previously, and Paisley and Izzy would keep their roles as Sophia and Evie, sisters. We added the scene with Roger so the story would make more sense, and the strange curse-like agreement so that there would be more theatrical effect. However, all of that added a lot of time to the performance, which meant we were stopped before we could get to our spectacle, which was a kick line between Heather, Sophia, and Evie. There were other factors included in making our performance run long, including group members mixing up their cues, and doing each other’s instead. I think one of our biggest problems was that we never were able to practice with the projector, especially with the added scene changes.

The overall experience was really fun, because we got to see what groups from all over the province created. Each group had to overcome certain challenges, and you could see they did well at that in their performance. It was also great to wander around a different, enormous high school, cheering on Seycove teams and hanging out with my friends, timing their performances or looking for another performance to watch.

The fifth step is to Evaluate and Celebrate. That’s what this post is for! Destination Imagination was an amazing experience, and if I had the opportunity, I would do it again. I think it has helped me with my team work skills, and I think that if I did it again, I would be much better equipped to collaborate with people of all kinds.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you look into DI for yourself!