January 13, 2020—On Saturday, January 11, 2020, School No. 46 participated in the Western New York Regional Future City competition at Mount St. Mary Academy in Kenmore. The School No. 46 team, which is comprised of sixth-grade students, took home three awards – the Mount St. Mary Student Choice award, Project Management Institute award, and earned fourth place out of 16 teams!
The National Engineers Week Future Competition is celebrating its 28th anniversary this year, reaching over 40,000 students from over the 1,350 schools in 40 regions across the United States. On Saturday, School No. 46 was one of 16 teams in grades 6-8 that competed. This year’s theme of “Tap in Tomorrow” had teams learn and design a resilient system to maintain a reliable supply of clean drinking water for a city in the future. Teams engaged in the engineer design process and developed essays, PowerPoint presentations, a virtual city in Sim City, and built a full-scale model using sustainable materials. During this highly engaging project-based learning competition, teams also learned about multiple career possibilities, such as civil, chemical, and industrial engineering and urban design planners.
Future City is a project-based learning program, where students in grades 6, 7, and 8 imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future. The Future City Competition engages more than 45,000 middle school students each year throughout the United States and abroad. Students repeatedly report that the program increases their motivation and excitement about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). In addition, students and teachers report a marked improvement in students’ 21st Century skills.
