SOUTHFIELD—The team from St. John Lutheran School in Rochester won a fourth place finish in the national tournament of Future City.
Future City is a project-based learning program where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades imagine, research, design, and build cities set at least 100 years in the future. The competition’s theme changes every year to keep the competition fresh. This year’s theme saw students building sustainable cities of the future on Earth’s Moon. Students were asked to demonstrate how they’d use two of the moon’s resources to keep the city’s residents safe and healthy.
The program’s requirements see teams develop a project plan, write an essay about their city, build a physical model of their city built with recycled materials, develop a seven-minute presentation on their city, and respond to judges’ questions after the presentation.
In addition to their top-four finish, the St. John team also won a special award for Most Sustainable Food Production System, sponsored by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE).
This year’s national Future City competition was held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. On Feb. 25, St. John earned the right to compete in the nationals by winning the Michigan Regional Future City Competition, which was also held virtually. The Michigan Regional competition is managed by The Engineering Society of Detroit.
Finishing second in the Michigan Regional was the Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting Anishnaabe Public School Academy of Sault Ste. Marie, and third place went to Light of the World Academy in Pinckney.
Presenting sponsors of the Michigan Regional are the DTE Foundation and the Ford Motor Co. Fund. Other sponsors are Air & Waste Management Association East Michigan Chapter, ASM International Detroit Chapter, American Society of Plumbing Engineers Eastern Michigan, Barton Malow, Black & Veatch, Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Care Network of Michigan, Citizens Insurance, Dürr, Farbman Group, Hartland Insurance Group Inc., IEEE, NTH Consultants Ltd., Paralyzed Veterans of America, U.S. Green Building Council Detroit Regional Chapter, University of Detroit Mercy, and Waste Management Inc.
Future City is a program of DiscoverE, the organization behind National Engineers Week. More at https://futurecity.org. More about ESD at https://esd.org.