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STUDENTS SUCCESSFULLY COMPETE IN FUTURE CITY COMPETITION
Students from East and South junior high schools recently received hands-on engineering experience, thanks to the Future City Competition - a national, project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade imagine, design and build cities of the future.
" We had a great time this year at the competition," said Aaron McKinnon, Physical Science Teacher, South Junior High School. "The students did very well at this culminating event showing off their 3-D scale model of a city they designed. They were grilled on their city for over three hours by 25 local engineer judges."
The South team earned the award for Best Consideration of Air Transportation
The event was held at Boise State University. There were 25 teams this year from Boundary County to Rock Springs, Wyoming to the Treasure Valley.
East Junior High School fielded a team supervised by Math and Physical Science Teacher Joanna Smith. The East team won the award for the Best Use of Aggregates (see team photo).
"I think some of the most amazing facts about this team is that they are all 7th graders and that they did all of the work (about 40 hours worth) after school, on weekends and over winter break," said Ms. Smith. "The model was planned and built by these students and they also had to submit two written essays and a computer based Sim City simulated city for judging."
South team members have been meeting 2-4 times a week since mid-October. "We also have two tremendous mentor local engineers who help out on a regular basis, Kurt Norrell and Nick McDowell," said Mr. McKinnon.
This flexible, cross-curricular educational program gives students an opportunity to do the things that engineers do - identify problems; brainstorm ideas; design solutions; test, retest and build; and share their results. This process is called the engineering design process. With this at its center, Future City is an engaging way to build students' 21st century skills. Students participating in Future City:
· Apply math and science concepts to real-world issues;
· Develop writing, public speaking, problem solving, and time management skills;
· Research and propose solutions to engineering challenges;
· Discover different types of engineering and explore careers options;
· Learn how their communities work and become better citizens; and
· Develop strong teamwork skills.
Members of the East Team (left to right): Nathan Ashworth, Theodore Knoll, Eric Johnson, Grace Johnson, and Miranda Lamb. The engineer mentor is Jim Ashworth, father of Nathan, and an engineer for Idaho Power. Far right, back row: Ms. Joanna Smith, Physical Science and Math Teacher, East Junior High.
 Members of the South Team (left to right): Emma Coffey, Aurora Fisher, Hannah Marker and Will Young.Their teacher is Aaron McKinnon, Physical Science, South Junior High School.
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