SOUTHFIELD — The Engineering Society of Detroit has issued an urgent call for volunteer mentors for the Michigan Regional Future City Competition. Judges are also still needed.
Future City is designed to engage students’ interest in math, science, and engineering through real-life, practical and hands-on activities. Future City is a cross-curricular educational program where students in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades work as a team with an educator and volunteer mentor to design a city of the future.
Mentors spend an hour or two a week between now and January working with their team. An integral part of the Future City team, mentors serve as team advisor and advocate for all phases of the program, providing valuable input and technical assistance. The mentor makes connections to real life engineering experiences, serves as a coach, and helps students translate the academic to the real world of engineering.
People who work in the engineering community are preferred to serve as mentors. This includes engineers, technical professionals, architects, and city or urban planners.
Teams are working now on the computer models of their cities, as well as their written presentation, oral presentation, and physical models.
Judges are also needed for the competition. The role of the judge is to draw on their expertise to fairly judge the team’s efforts. Easy to use assessment tools (called rubrics) help judges evaluate work. Some judging can be done virtually, or judge the fun-filled one-day team presentation experience.
Judges are needed for three phases of the competition:
• SimCity Computer Designs — The SimCity designs will be judged in December and January.
• Essays and Narratives — The essays and narratives will be judged in December and January.
• Models and Team Presentations — Judges attend on competition day, Jan. 26, at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, and evaluate the team’s models and presentations.
If you are interested in serving as a mentor or judge please visit www.futurecity.org/register and register. Please make sure to choose Michigan when it asks you to choose a region.
For more information on mentoring, contact Matt Roush, mroush@esd.org or (48) 353-0735, ext. 112.
For more information on judging, contact Leslie Smith at lsmith@esd.org or 248-353-0735, ext. 152.