Odyssey Of The Mind Team Qualifies For World Finals

Aspen Elementary School Odyssey of the Mind Team poses early Tuesday evening outside the school board room, from left, Grace Virgilio, Sophia Pacheco, Vickie Daley, Alea Kretz, Matthew Allen, Jayden Garcia, Xander Wilson and Mike Coggeshall. Courtesy/LAPS

 

By CAROL A. CLARK
Los Alamos Daily Post
caclark@ladailypost.com

The Los Alamos School Board recognized a group of Aspen Elementary School students during its meeting Tuesday evening who participated in the Odyssey of the Mind competition and qualified for World Finals being held in May at Michigan State University.

Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem-solving competition.

A few members of the team attended the school board meeting along with their sponsors Victoria Daley and Matthew Allen, both teachers at Aspen School.

The team attended the Colorado State competition April 6. LAPS Superintendent Kurt Steinhaus said he enjoyed receiving updates on their activities throughout that event. 

“I’m really proud of the students, teachers and parents, they worked really hard all year,” Steinhaus said. “They have learned a lot and had fun competing and are already working on plans for next year’s World Finals.

Daley explained that the team does not have the funding to attend this year’s World Finals but is planning on doing some fundraising to hopefully compete next year.

This is the only Odyssey of the Mind team in New Mexico, but said they hope that the middle school and high school will consider creating teams next year.

Daley said that what she finds so awesome about Odyssey of the Mind is that it’s the perfect combination of STEM and performing arts and said that it is really cool to see both of those come together.

“We are very proud of the hard work and dedication to creative problem solving and collaboration our team gave this year,” Daley said. “We feel supported by the Los Alamos community and hope, with fundraising, we will be able to take the team to World Finals in 2020. We would love to mentor a coach at the middle school and high school next year, too!”

To help the team compete in the World Finals in 2020, donations are being excepted at www.lapsfoundation.com/odyssey.

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