It’s not often that K-12 students from Maine get to participate in international events. Sixty-three Maine students have just returned from Knoxville, Tenn., where they were part of Global Finals 2008 Destination Imagination, a competition that tests students’ problem-solving and creative capabilities.

Eighteen Maine teams qualified at the recent statewide competition for the Global Finals. Listed below are the 15 teams that were able to raise enough money to travel to Knoxville, May 20- 24:

Challenge Level (elementary, middle, secondary):

Chorific E – Cherryfield Elementary School.

Chorific M – SAD 5 Rockland District Middle School.

Chorific S – Narraguagus High School, Harrington; Leavitt Area High School, Turner.

Myth E – Longfellow Elementary School, Brunswick.

Myth M – Hancock Grammar School.

Myth S – Oxford Hills High School, South Paris.

Obstacles E – Asa C. Adams School, Orono.

Obstacles M – Hancock Grammar School.

Obstacles S – Biddeford High School.

Secret E – Mary Snow School, Bangor; Harrison Middle School, Yarmouth.

Secret M – Hartford-Sumner School, Sumner.

Secret S – Buckfield Jr.-Sr. High School.

Switch S – Hancock Grammar School alumni.

Yes, most of the teams need to raise the money themselves to go to Globals. This can be tough to do when the approximate cost for one participant to attend is $1,000. Housing and food range from $540 to $590 per person for the week, and transportation by car ran between $400 and $500 per person. One Down East team rode a Greyhound bus for 33 hours each way to get to and from Globals.

But the benefits of going to Globals are well worth the expense. Lorrie Benn, a team manager for the high school team made up of Hancock Grammar School alumni, observed that one of the hardest things to do yet one of the most valuable life skills is getting along during competition.

“As a team manager, I was proud of the maturity I saw, with team members sticking to their guns, so to speak, and still keeping the feelings of the other team members in mind,” Benn said.

Teamwork is a basic tenet of Destination Imagination. A team’s solution to a challenge could fail miserably, yet the team could still score reasonably well because of effective teamwork. Abby Reynolds of the “Crazy Gang” DI team at the Mary Snow School in Bangor agreed. She said, “At Globals I learned how important teamwork really is.”

For the Asa C. Adams School team of Orono, it was the second trip to Globals, and for the Hancock Grammar School alumni team members, their experience was varied. One member, Carter Wasson, made his first trip; Casey and Christa Benn made their second trip; and Kelsey Jipson made her third trip.

This was the “Crazy Gang” team’s first trip to Globals. Their team manager, Jennifer Reynolds, said, “Going to Global Finals is kind of indescribable. You hear so much about it, but until you get there you can’t even begin to understand what it is all about.

“We were in complete awe,” she said. “There were kids that were so creative that you almost couldn’t believe they had made what they had, or did what they did. One boy made a Marines dress blues uniform out of duct tape. It was absolutely amazing.”

Reynolds said logistics were handled extremely well. “We were so impressed how DI could put something together of that magnitude and have it run so smoothly. If there were any snags, we didn’t notice any. I don’t think that people realize there were over 1,000 teams and 19,000 people to take care of.”

Pin trading is an essential component of DI Globals, giving students a reason to meet others within the DI world. Leslee Noyes, a parent chaperone of the Orono team, spoke about having breakfast the first morning and being approached by the boys from the next table. They were from Singapore, spoke English well, and wanted to trade pins with her daughters.

“Where else would my daughters have a chance to meet people from Singapore and South Korea and Tennessee all in the same place and all with the common interest of using their brains creatively?” Noyes said.

Marcus Gosselin and Joe Johnson of the Mary Snow School team said the most fun thing about Globals was pin trading and opening and closing ceremonies. Their teammates, Katie Small and Kylie Hawes, said that meeting other kids from all over the world will be the most memorable thing they experienced.

Even the high schoolers are not immune to the attraction of pin trading. Team manager Lorrie Benn said, “Casey Benn and Kelsey Jipson spent quite a bit of time finding the elusive pin they so much wanted. Kelsey is especially proud of her Wizard of Oz set she managed to collect. Since this set involved nine different states, she got to meet many new people.”

So DI is about using the brain creatively, meeting other people from all over the world, and teamwork. All of this was summed up when team members from the Adams School told me what happened during their presentation of their solution at Globals.

Katie Sypher, Emily Noyes, Emma Peterson, Annika Avery and Anna Webber were performing a skit that matched the car they designed against an obstacle course. They had to work hard to stay in character when their car hit Jake Koffman in the nose while his sister Lily Koffman the other driver, laughed so hard that she had tears running down her face.

“After the car hit my nose, it ran a lot … my nose, not the car,” Jake said. The team completed its presentation despite the accident and finished 12th out of 82 entries in its Challenge category.

If you are interested in participating in DI next year, go to either www.createme.org or www.idodi.org. What are your DI stories? E-mail me at conversationswithateacher@gmail.com.