DI Global Champions recognized by CISD Board of Trustees

THE WOODLANDS, Texas - The Conroe Independent School District Board of Trustees gave special recognition to Destination Imagination Global Champions at Tuesday’s Board meeting. The team, comprised of seven 2015 graduates of the Academy of Science and Technology (AST), was awarded first place at the DI Global Finals that took place May 20-23 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

DI is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering students' curiosity, courage and creativity through open-ended STEM, fine arts and service learning challenges. The challenge selected by the team was called Feary Tales with the requirements to have a fairy tale type story with a character with a phobia, an optical illusion, and two types of art. Their pride and joy was the chameleon costume programmed with lights that changed as the animal’s moods changed which they said took over 100 hours of work to accomplish.

Headmaster of the AST, Dr. Susan Caffery, introduced the team and team manager to the Board. Team members include Andrew Cahill, Nicole Chin, Kayla Kelly, Sarah Mohamed, Paulome Srivastava, Erik Young, and Victoria Youngblood.

“I’m glad I got to wrap up the last 3 years of craziness with some of my best friends, a great trip, an amazing performance and no sleep. This is one of the lasts I will miss the most,” said Andrew Cahill.

“This is the best showing ever at Globals for the Academy DI teams,” team manager Bobby Lowenberg said. Two other teams from the AST placed third and fourth in the tournament.

In all, Conroe ISD had eight teams travel to the Global competition.

• Academy of Science and Technology, 4 teams
• Knox Junior High, 1 team
• Coulson Tough Elementary, 1 team
• David Elementary, 2 teams

Founded in 1982, Destination Imagination has impacted more than 1.5 million students. To learn more, click here.