Leadership Training Videos

The agents have just complete their mission to Iraq. Details of their adventures will be coming soon.

In the meantime, I.D.A. Headquarters asked the agents to develop a training video to teach new recruits how to work with a team.

Check out what the agents came up with!

Alexis: I.D.A. Mission to IRAQ

Here is a report on our fifth InFlight drama session with the agents of the IDA.

Safely back on the yacht after our successful adventure in Tibet, the IDA agents checked their mail! They had received a thank-you letter from the Ruben Museum, who had heard that they had saved the stories from Buddhism and the monks from being stolen by Carmen.

The agents hit the fitness room on the yacht, where they exercised and did some small group training work. In Tibet, there had been a few glitches with team-work skills, especially when the entire group of agents had to work together to create a formation with all of their bodies....the shape of a mountain that could be seen from above.

After exercising, we recieved a message from HQ! They had intercepted some messages from Carmen! We got out our atlases to be prepared. We listened to a music clip picked up from a cell phone call. Shams recognized it! We deciphered a math problem that gave map coordinates and re-assembled mixed up words that turned out to be the countries surrounding Iraq. Finally, we watched a video of one of Carmen's computer screens that HQ had hacked into. After all those clues, the kids had no doubt that the next place Carmen was headed was Iraq!

We mapped our course on the world map. The agents spent the next week on the ship, going through the learning stations Alexis (aka Ingrid) had so brilliantly set up. By the next week, they were ready for their Iraq adventure!

Mission Reports from Tibet

In our next drama session, the Agents arrived in Tibet and found out what Carmen was trying to steal: all of the stories of Tibetan Buddhism!!

They had only one hour to intercept and solve the clues that Carmen was leaving her agents! They had 3 clues to solve.

1. At the Yak Hotel in Lhasa they ordered vegetable momos (traditional Tibetan dumplings). As they were eating (yum!), they noticed that the bottom of the plates had scrambled letters on them! They had to work together quickly to unscramble the letters, sending them to...

2. Potala Palace, "West Hall". At the Potala Palace, the guards were only letting religion students into the West Hall. To prove they were studying Buddhism, the IDA agents were asked to draw a picture of one symbol or story of Buddhism. Thankfully, the guards were very impressed by their knowledge and let them in.

3. The next clue lead them to the sacred Nam-Tso Lake where they had to accomplish a difficult task as a team!

Hear all about this latest mission to Tibet from the Agents themselves!

First stop, Yak Hotel where Agents Karma, Tenzin, Dream, Jackson, and Mateo share the details.





What happened next? Listen to Agents Bryanna, Shams, Tajah and Lindsey and find out!




Agents Jose, Christopher, Julian, Tanner, Owen, and Andre tell more about Potala Palace.






The adventure continues at Lake Nam Tso, hear from Agents Spencer, Solomon, and Cormac!





And finally, hear more about how the Agents saved the day - straight from Agents Dolma, Lidija, and Willa!

Alexis: I.D.A. Mission to TIBET

Here is a report on our third InFlight drama session with the agents of the IDA.

Safely back on the yacht after our adventure in Kenya, the IDA agents had a debriefing of their mission. They had successfully foiled Carmen San Diego's plans to steal all of the trees of the Green Belt Movement (planted by Wangari Maathai and the women of Kenya) as well as the National Motto, "Harambe!", which means "to pull together". We discussed the kinds of things that Carmen likes to steal: very significant, large-scale things that are very important to a country. We also talked about how well we did as agents and how we could improve for our next mission. Ideas included listening better, paying attention to details, improving our tourist disguises, and thinking on our feet to come up with better answers when asked about who we are and what we're doing.

We were just about to have a little free time in the fitness and pool room, when an urgent message came in from Headquarters! They had intercepted a message from Carmen! The message said: "Same latitude as Cairo, Egypt". We got out our atlases and started making guesses as to what country it could be. Two more intercepted communications were retrieved. They were pictograms that we deciphered: "Roof of the World" and "Home of Snow". I think Karma, Tenzin, and Dolma knew where it was at this point! But, we all discussed the meaning of the messages and came to conclusion that there must be many mountains in this place. Just then, HQ called again. They had just hacked into one of Carmen's computers and were able to record the screen of one of the computers as a google search was happening. This was the google search of one of Carmen's agents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhPQxO6qbDE

They were very excited about this video and had lots of

ideas about what Carmen might be up to in Tibet! This was on April 27th, sowe knew that we had one week to get there. Headquarters sent us information about traveling in Tibet immediately. I read some information to the students about the very high altitude of Tibet and how most travelers need to take several days to rest and acclimate. We discussed how this would be impossible to do since when we would arrive on May 4th, we would only have a few hours to discover Carmen's plan. We decided we would need to be in excellent shape before we arrived! We got right to work. A team of agents started redesigning the fitness room. They drew up plans for rock climbing walls, high-tech tread-mills that simulate steep mountains, and even fake mountains with fog/snow machines and fans simulating the weather conditions in the Himalayas. Another group studied the symptoms and remedies for altitude sickness. Another team studied pictures of Mt. Everest climbers and made a list of all the supplies we would need should we have to do any Himalayan climbing while there. It was a very productive, exciting end to our 3rd drama session. Sally Sleuth told everyone she would head straight to Tibet to start sleuthing for clues. In the meantime, the agents would spend one week on the yacht, researching all the could about Tibet (and working out in the new fitness room!)

The following week, Alexis (Ingrid Investigator) prepared amazing centers for the students. They read books about hte Dalai Lama, they listened to recordings of Tibetan words (recorded by Tenzin, Dolma, and Karma), they listened to music, watched a video, and took a field trip to the Ruben Museum of Himalayan art where they heard many stories of Buddhism!

Stay tuned for the agent reports about what happened when they arrived on May 4th in Tibet!