MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- More than 15,000 students and their supporters arrive in Knoxville Wednesday for an international creativity competition on the University of Tennessee campus.
Students from across the U.S. and 13 foreign countries are converging on UT for Destination Imagination’s four-day, annual Global Finals contest.
Destination Imagination is a 13 year-old educational program that fosters creative problem solving through global competition.
Destination says on its website that more than 100,000 students from than 30 countries participate each year. It also says more than 1700 new student teams formed last year, 700 of them in China.
Teacher Becky Reeves of Milan (MY-lun) Tennessee is attending the event along with the team from the Milan Middle School. She says Destination Imagination helps students develop marketable skills.
‘What jobs want now is people that can think out of the box, and so students tend to learn to think creatively and use their imagination and being innovative in what they’re thinking. I think it really prepares them for the future.”
Some of the countries with students attending this week’s competition in Knoxville include Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Norway.