Brain power: St. Paul’s students to compete on national stage

The Florida Times-Union | June 11, 2021

A team of five students from St. Paul’s Catholic School in Jacksonville Beach will participate in the 2021 World Finals of Odyssey of the Mind this weekend. 

Odyssey of the Mind has been the world’s greatest creative problem-solving program since its beginning in 1978. What started as a project for students in a single industrial design class has grown into a worldwide program that has reached multiple generations, allowing students to learn, develop and employ skills related to teamwork, resource management, designing and making, divergent thinking and so much more. 

The Odyssey of the Mind team at St. Paul’s has been working together since the third grade. They’re now seventh graders and they placed first in the Odyssey of the Mind State Competition in Division II, Problem 5 in March — only the fourth time a team from St. Paul’s has progressed to the World Competition. They’ll go on to compete with hundreds of other teams from schools across the United States. 

Due to the pandemic, the five-person team of seventh-graders could only meet virtually from September through December last year. As a result, they had a handful of in-person meetings to prepare for the state competition, making their first division win all the more impressive. 

For more information about the program, visit OdysseyoftheMind.com or email Shirin Mitsis, St. Paul’s Odyssey of the Mind coach, at scmitsis@gmail.com. 

Image: Members of the Odissey of the Mind St. Paul team include Alexandria Mitsis (from left), Isabella Hovan, Evie M’Ree Moore, Ryan Ley and Henry Baranek. Diocese Of St. Augustine