My Future City Experience with Engineering
by Emma Henderson

When I first started in the Future City program, I had no idea what to expect.  I knew that building a model was involved as well as explaining how things worked in our city, but I had no idea of the amount of work and dedication that would be involved in completing a successful project. 

As a sixth grader I mentored with the older students to learn what was involved with Future City. I was amazed at how many different aspects were involved in city planning. As a 7th grader I was fortunate to be on the presenting team for our school. We won our regional competition and competed at the national competition for the first time with our teacher in Washington DC.  We had no idea what to expect in Washington and we were amazed with the models, the essays, and the people. We came away from the competition with a whole new appreciation for engineering and science and the caliber of ideas that middle school students are capable of.

As an eighth grader, I was looking forward to being a leader on our school’s Future City Team. I learned first hand what it meant to be dedicated to a project and as my interest in engineering and science grew, I found I was spending more and more time on that project – Future City. My school was fortunate to win our regional competition again this year and we returned to Washington DC to complete in the national competition again.  It was so much fun to see some of the same friends we had made the year before and I was amazed again at the quality of work that the various teams brought to DC. It was a great opportunity to learn new things and share ideas with other middle school students. At one point during the competition, we had a great conversation with another team about nanotechnology. Who would have guessed that? It was great to share our ideas and what we had learned from our research!

Being involved in Future City has taught me so much such as compromise, problem- solving, research, writing, oral presentation skills, and acceptance. I learned that while there are many great ideas presented in every phase of the project, it was a true life lesson learning to work together to choose what was right for our city, our model and our essay and how to work together in a positive way toward a common goal.

Also, I never realized how many different types of engineers it takes to plan and run a city and how people must work together to make a positive impact.  I never saw myself in a science related career, but taking from this experience what I know now, I would like to be a civil engineer and help people build their own dream, and make it a reality

About the Author:  Emma Henderson is an 8th-grader at Heritage Middle School in Westerville, Ohio.  Emma and her teammates at Heritage M.S. are the 2008 National Engineers Week Future City National Champions.