Odyssey of the Mind
The Our Lady of Lourdes Odyssey of the Mind program a unique experience for students grades one through seven to enhance critical thinking skills by working on a competitive enrichment team. Odyssey of the Mind is a creative-problem solving competition that requires teams to work for several months to solve open-ended, complicated problems. These solutions are then performed for judges in an eight minute presentation. Students must work completely free from any outside help including assistance from coaches, parents, or other non-team members. In addition to the long-term solutions, students are also given a problem on the day of the competition to solve quickly as a team in a category known as “Spontaneous.”
Winning teams continue to the state level. Last year, an OLL Division II team comprised of 7th graders presented a problem solution called, “Full Circle.” Their team placed fifth and received ribbons at the awards ceremony. An OLL Division I team comprised of fifth graders placed 2nd in their problem entitled, “As Good as Gold…berg.” They advanced to states and where they competed at the University of Central Florida. We are so proud of our students who participate in this wonderful program!
Robotics Club
The Our Lady of Lourdes Robotics Club is an after school class for students from grades five to eight. Students meet weekly to design, build, and test robotic instruments and creations. The club aims to stimulate student interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. It challenges their existing skills and maximizes their learning potential by taking education outside of the classroom and applying it to a specific goal, autonomous robotics. Robotics challenges students to think creatively in an innovative, collaborative fashion. Working as a team, students spend the year preparing for the annual Robofest Competition, an event which requires groups of 2 or 3 to design, build, and program robots for competition. Last year, the OLL team took first place, beating out students from 14 different states! We look forward to another exceptional year of Robotics in 2012-2013.
Brain Bowl
The Clearwater Central Catholic Brain Bowl is an annual academic competition for the Catholic middle schools in Northern Pinellas County. Every year, eight students are chosen from the eighth grade class at Our Lady of Lourdes to participate in this prestigious competition. The team spends weeks preparing, quizzing each other and memorizing a facts and theories from all content areas. Last year, our Brain Bowl team won first place at the 2011 CCC Brain Bowl! This year’s team is shaping up to follow suit and we are eager for another academic competition.
