PARIS – A group of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School students are off to a global competition in Tennessee after winning first place in the recent Imagination Destination competition.

“It’s been three or four years since we’ve been in them,” said Superintendent Mark Eastman as he made the announcement at Monday night’s Board of Directors meeting. “This is really neat for them.”

The team will represent Maine in the competition.

“This is a worldwide creative problem competition,” explained Eastman. “Two teams went to state competition and one was invited to go to globals in Tennessee.”

According to its Web site, Destination Imagination is the world’s largest creativity and problem solving organization and inspires participants in its programs to learn the process, art and skill associated with solving problems.

Sara Reis, coach of the team, called the program “a celebration of creativity and team work.” Reis said the teams took several months to prepare for the challenges that hold competitions on an elementary, middle and secondary school level.

At the competitions they present their central challenge as well as compete in an instant challenge where they hear about and solve a problem in a few short minutes. The combined scores of the two challenges determine team standings, she said.

The two top-scoring teams advance to the states and then the top to the global. Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School sent two teams to the state in Orono last month.

The winning team, coached by Reis and Genevieve Ricard, earned a special award for creativity of sets and costumes and a first place medal. Their central challenge, “Hit or Myth,” consisted of creating and presenting a theatrical performance with an original story about a myth, urban legend or folk tale. The story must be set in a nation other than their team’s own, she said.

Reis said the students designed and carried out a myth investigation that investigated facts about the team’s myth and presented the results of the investigation as part of their story. The team chose the English folk tale of Humpty Dumpty, and using different Renaissance era glues were able to scientifically prove that an egg can be put back together using a cheese glue. Using recyclable materials, the students created a set that included the Tower of London to illustrate their myth.

The second team, coached by Ellen Burnham, came in second for its problem “Chorific.” The challenge consisted of creating a six-minute improvisational skit about an ordinary, randomly selected chore attempting to overcome two randomly selected obstacles.

“We are very excited about the fantastic accomplishments of our high school teams,” said Reis, who is hoping to raise enough money to send the team to the globals from May 22 to May 24, where the team will present its solution with teams from across the country and around the world.

Fundraising events are being planned in the next few weeks, including a raffle of four Red Sox tickets. For more information or to donate call Ricard at OHCHS 743-7756 extension 4415.