The Lancaster Middle School Odyssey of the Mind team on March 4 competed in the 2017 Odyssey of the Mind Region 10 Tournament.
Eighth-grade teacher and Odyssey coach Michael Bannan and 32 students traveled to Louisa County to compete with teams representing 20 other schools from around the state. The LMS team placed third in the problem-solving events among more than 40 forty teams.
“All of the students worked so hard and showed such talent. I could not be more proud of their efforts, cooperation with other group members, problem-solving techniques and overall enthusiasm for this endeavor,” said Coach Bannan.
Over the course of the school year, he has watched students in grades four through eight representing the journey of discovery participants take while using their creativity and natural abilities to solve the program’s challenging problems.
Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state and world level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and about 25 other countries participate.
In Odyssey of the Mind, students learn skills that will last a lifetime. They work in teams so they learn cooperation and respect for the ideas of others. They evaluate ideas and make decisions on their own, gaining greater self-confidence and increased self-esteem along the way. They work within a budget, so they learn to manage their money. They see that there is often more than one way to solve a problem and that sometimes the process is more important than the result.
