Waste Not Want Not in the Future; 2016 Future City Competition
It is time for middle schools to register students for the 2016 Future City competition, which allows students who are our future leaders, along with a teacher, and a professional mentor from the local community to join forces and develop a model of their take on how to make the world a better place.
Last year, 19 middle schools participated in the state competition for 2014-2015, and Ohios Future City organization hopes to see more students become problem-solvers this year.
The upcoming competition will ask students to focus in 2015-2016 on new, imaginative solutions for getting rid of things, looking at typical solutions in a new way for collection, separation, procession, recycling, health and safety, energy efficiency, environmental impact and cost. The theme, Waste Not Want Not, will allow students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades to learn how todays engineers and city planners deal with solid waste management, as they research cutting edge technologies and imagine plausible, futuristic solutions for future generations.
The winning Ohio team will represent their state at a national final Future City Competition, a program of DiscoverE, during National Engineers Week, Feb. 21-27. The national finals team champion will receive a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. provided by national finals host Bentley Systems, Inc.
For more information, or to register a team or learn how to find an engineering mentor, please contact Ohio Future City at http://www.futurecity.org/Ohio. The deadline to register is October 23, 2015.
About the Future City Competition:
This years competition is held from September 2015 through February 2016. DiscoverE is the title for what was formerly called National Engineers Week Foundation. Future City is a program that allows middle school students to explore careers in engineering.
During the competition, student teams work together using project management skills. They design a virtual city using SimCity software. They research an issue and write a description of their findings, solutions and features of their city. They build a tabletop scale model of their city using recycled materials that cost no more than $100. At a regional competition, they can present their final project to a panel of judges.
Last year, more than 40,000 students representing 1,350 schools took part in the Future City Competition. More information is available at www.futurecity.com, or by contacting Debbie Morgan, the FCC Ohio Region Coordinator, [email protected].
Major funding for the national finals comes from Bechtel Corporation, Bentley Systems Inc., and Shell Oil Company. In Ohio, major sponsors include Xylem and AEP. Additional sponsors include Ohio EPAs Environmental Education Fund, and IBI Group/ME Companies are Ohios host organization.
