Teaching Life

The Future City Competitions are sponsored by the engineering community to promote creative, hands-on, educational opportunities for middle school students.  The annual competition allows 7th and 8th graders throughout the country to engineer a future city using the SimCity 4 Deluxe software.  The model created using the software will then be turned into a 3-D model to be displayed in the competition. The students work as a team using math, science, engineering, and technology skills to create this model for a city of tomorrow.

This year’s focus was on the value of water as a resource and finding and creating ways to conserve and reuse water.  The students also have to write and present an essay that discusss their model and the ways to utilize renewable water in the home. The students were required to use recyclable material and the project had to be less than $100 to build.

With science and math scores on the decline in this country and less and less college students choosing Engineering as a college major, this is a great way to spark the interest of students into Science and Engineering. It allows the students to get the hands-on experience and apply these skills into useful projects that can be applied to real world applications.

For the Colorado region , the competition was held at New Hope Baptist Church in Denver on January 24, 2009.  The competition is held at different regions throughout the country.  The final competition is held in Washington D.C. where the winner of the National Finals will win a one week trip to Space Camp in Alabama.

For more information and to look at competitions in your specific region, go to the Future City Web site .