rise to the CHALLENGE!: 2013 Future City--Chicago

Have you ever imagined a place where cars can drive UNDER buses? Would you like to live in an apartment building that turns one rotation during a 24 hour period? What is the best renewable energy source for a city of the future? How can we reduce storm water pollution? These are all questions that students asked themselves while preparing for the Future City competition.

The Future City Competition is a national, project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade imagine, design, and build cities of the future. Students work as a team with an educator and engineer mentor to plan cities using SimCity™ 4 Deluxe software; research and write solutions to an engineering problem; build tabletop scale models with recycled materials; and present their ideas before judges at Regional Competitions in January. Regional winners represent their region at the National Finals in Washington, DC in February (http://futurecity.org/about). This year's theme is "Rethink Runoff -Design clean solutions to manage stormwater pollution."

Two St. Clair Junior High Challenge classes participated in Chicago's regional competition held Saturday, January 26 at the University of Illinois Chicago. Both teams chose city locations with highly polluted rivers because of this year's theme. The 7th grade team chose to build their city near Jakarta, Indonesia. Their focus was to clean up the Citarum River, thus the name of their city--New Citarum. The 8th grade team chose to build their city in Argentina, near the Rio de la Plata. The Matanza-Riachuelo runs into the Rio de la Plata, and it has been affectionately called the "Chunky Lung" river by my students because 21% of the pollution comes from the meat, tannery, and dairy industry dumping blood, and internal organs into the river.

As a top 5 contender, the Ciudad de Agua Pura team shared their future city vision on the main stage. The 8th grade team placed third overall and won several awards including the "Best Virtual City," " Best City Promotion," and the "Peer Award." 7th grade students won the award for "Most Inclusive Community Promoting Work-life Balance."

For more information, you can go to the Future City link: http://futurecity.org/illinois-chicago.

The 8th grade Future City Team, "Ciudad de Agua Pura" poses with their mentor, Angel Ramos. Angel is an Airport Engineer for the Spirit of St. Louis Airport. He is also a member of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers (MSPE). MSPE sponsored our teams, and they donated $600 for supplies and transportation. Thank you Mr. Ramos and thank you MSPE!