Catskill CSD brought home five medals and a team each from Catskill Elementary School, Catskill Middle School, and Catskill High School will be heading to states after their stellar performances at the Region Four Odyssey of the Mind Tournament hosted March 25 at Coxsackie-Athens CSD.
Coordinated locally by Questar III BOCES, Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational competition that encourages students to use their imaginations and work as a team to solve problems. The teams performed creative skits they developed to demonstrate their solutions to open-ended problems put forth by the competition. Teams were judged on their unique solutions to the problems as well as their teamwork, creativity, and ability to think outside the box.
Catskill High School took first place in the Division III “It’s Time, OMER” problem, where they were tasked with creating an original performance about time travelers looking to discover the inspiration behind great works of art, both from the past and the future.
Teams from both Catskill Elementary School and Catskill Middle School took first place in the “Ready, Set, Balsa, Build” problem for Division 1 and Division II, respectively. In this problem, our students designed, built, and tested a structure made only from balsa wood and glue, done as part of a performance with the theme of “using what’s available.”
As the first-place finishers, these three teams earned a spot to compete in the NYS Odyssey of the Mind tournament held in Binghamton on April 8th. Wish our teams luck! If they win in Binghamton they will move on to the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals held at Michigan State University in May.
Additionally, a team from Catskill High School took home a second place medal in the Division III “Odd-a-Bot” problem, for which the team was tasked with creating and performing a story about a family that brings home a robot that can only learn from watching others, with hilarious results.
Catskill High also took second place in the Division III “To Be Continued: A Superhero Cliffhanger” problem, where students presented a humorous performance about a superhero whose mission in life is to save society from losing its creativity.
We are proud to congratulate to all elementary, middle, and high school students who represented Catskill so well at the 2017 regional Odyssey of the Mind. At Catskill Central Schools, Cats Can!