Teams of five to seven members work together to apply creativity, critical thinking and their particular talents to solve a Team Challenge.  The Challenge is solved over a period of eight weeks or more. There are five competitive Team Challenges and one non-competitive challenge from which teams may choose, each with its own educational focus. Each Team Challenge is designed to be open-ended and solvable in many ways and on many levels.

This year, Horace Mann had a team made up of 7 1^st and 2^nd graders who participated in the non-competitive DI Rising Stars Challenge: TwisDId History!  They performed their skit on Saturday, March 1, at the regional competition at Harding High School. The team members were Andy, Leah, Taylor, Madison, Liam, Grace, and Nicolas.  They had a wonderful time and did a fantastic job at the competition.

The team’s challenge was to choose something that happened in the past and change it. The team came up with the idea that dinosaurs ruled the earth after humans were all destroyed in the ice age.  After eating dinner, while they were sitting in front of the T.V. watching Hannah Mondino, the T.V. changed into a transporter sent them to the moon where they met some friendly aliens.  The aliens tried to convince the dinos to stay on the moon with them.  The dinosaurs decided that they really would rather live on the earth and were sent back to their very own living room.

The team also elected to participate in the Instant Challenge.  An instant challenge is a problem given to the team that they need to work together and solve in 2 to 5 minutes.  This year’s challenge was to create icky bugs in 2 minutes and then to have their bugs put on a little skit.  They were critiqued on their ability to assess and use available materials in creative ways.  The judges also looked at their knack for improvisation, their flair for performance, their time-management strategies, and their teamwork.