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Neighborhood Report

Creative kids set to wow the world with intellect

Buckhorn Elementary students take their problem-solving skit to the world Odyssey of the Mind competition next month in Iowa.

By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published April 21, 2006

The set is a riot of color depicting the sea and the jungle, and everything is larger than life. Children play a Beach Boys medley and dance the Monkey.

And that only covers the first 30 seconds of a winning contest entry that will take seven Buckhorn Elementary School students to Iowa in May.

Odyssey of the Mind, a competition started in 1978 by a college professor who believed that creativity could be taught, asks children to solve open-ended problems and to dramatize the solutions on stage.

Materials for the seven-minute performances must come under a tight budget $125 for the Buckhorn group, and children must do all of the work on their own. Adult coaches and parents can keep children working together but are not allowed to kibitz.

This year's world competition, a three-day event starting May 24, will draw teams from the United States and 20 other countries to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Teams chose among five problems emphasizing such talents as mechanical ingenuity, the ability to create weight-bearing geometric structures, and the imagination needed to bring ancient Egypt to life.

To qualify for the world competition, the Buckhorn team won at a regional competition in March and then took second place in the state in Orlando.

Judges evaluate groups based on creativity and style, plus how well they respond to a "spontaneous problem" given at the competition.

Of the 10 Florida elementary school teams advancing to world competition, Buckhorn is the only one from Hillsborough County.

Fifth-grade students Matthew Oberle, Trey Van DeGrift, Vincent Roth and Jocelyn Gallahan; and fourth-graders Theresa Burrell, Jenna Remmert and Bryanna Leonard make up the Buckhorn team. Since August, they have worked to perfect their chosen problem, which stars Vincent as a surfer carried by a tidal wave to the Amazon rain forest.

Once there, the surfer discovers that he has the ability to talk to animals played by other team members. A manatee, elephant and an ocelot all bring their problems to him, and the surfer offers logical solutions.

Most of the problem solving occurs during a "tribal meeting," not unlike a session on Survivor.

The surfer must also convince a skeptical zoologist that he really can talk to animals.

The skit begins and ends with a Beach Boys sound track with lyrics written by the students. To get this far, the group had to learn to work together, said Odyssey of the Mind coach Kyra Leonard, a teacher at Buckhorn. That wasn't easy, especially at the start of the school year, Leonard said.

"There was a lot of yelling," she said. "They just didn't want to be together. It was the boys and the girls, and there was just no in between."

The groups worked separately for months. Matthew, 10 said he didn't think the group jelled until the state competition.

The group faced another challenge in October when Theresa Burrell passed out and was airlifted to St. Joseph's Hospital. Doctors diagnosed arterio-venous malformation, an abnormal collection of blood vessels in the brain.

Theresa recovered quickly, but her mother, Alice Burrell, said in an interview that she will likely undergo radiation therapy soon.

The children said they did not know if the play would come off exactly as planned. Teams have the right to change their productions right up to the moment of performance. Bryanna said that the thought of going before the judges made her a little nervous.

"At world, we're going to get the toughest, meanest judges out there," she said.

Families could use donations to offset the trip's $10,000 price tag, said Burrell. Anyone interested in contributing to Buckhorn's Odyssey of the Mind team can contact her at 685-7323 or call Buckhorn Elementary at 744-8240.

Andrew Meacham can be reached at 661-2431 or ameacham@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 20, 2006, 12:46:21]