As Difficult As It Is Fun, Future City Competition Becomes A Hit With Thousands Of Seventh- And Eighth-Graders

With demanding standards and a high-voltage dose of math and science, national engineering program is a rare mix, indeed: educational and fun. 

When teaching engineering and technology to middle school students, an age group notorious for its lack of patience with anything remotely uncool, how do you get and hold their interest? If the first ten years of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition™ is any indication, the key to reaching seventh- and eighth-graders is to be very, very challenging.

Sponsored by the National Engineers Week Committee, a consortium of more than 100 engineering societies and corporations, Future City has rapidly become one of the most successful educational programs of its kind. Begun in 1992 by the engineering community to raise awareness and appreciation of engineering among middle school students, the competition invites student teams, working with a teacher and volunteer engineer mentor from the community, to design a city of the future on computer and in three-dimensional scale models. As they fabricate a metropolis from the ground up, balance a city budget and deal with intractable social issues such as pollution and unemployment, the students solve intricate problems of math, science, and technology along the way. 

Yet, when asked to describe Future City, the almost universal response of 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds who compete is one word: fun. And the reason it's fun, organizers, teachers and others involved in the not-for-profit program insist, is because it makes young people work so hard. 

"I get a lot of positive feedback from parents who have children in Future City," says Ron Griffith, P.E., a civil engineer with the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and coordinator of that region's Future City program, one of 29 in the nation. "They tell me that it changes their kids, that they like it, and that it was interesting to them because it really made them stretch."

Mark Rivard, a technology teacher at Lewiston-Porter Middle School in Youngstown, New York whose students won the Buffalo regional competition last year and placed second nationally, agrees. "When judges ask our teams what they got out of the competition," he says, "the kids answer, 'It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.'"

So much fun, in fact, that the majority of students who participate do so as an extracurricular activity, meeting after school, on weekends and during holiday breaks to complete their project, which involves countless hours of research, writing and computer simulations.

Students begin at the start of the school year, completing the computer portion in December. (Students use SimCity 3000™ software, donated by Maxis, based in Walnut Creek, California.) By the time of the regional competitions, held in January, the students will have completed the 3-D model, written a 300- to 500-word essay on solving an urban problem -- this year's essay theme is research, exploration, generation, and conservation of energy -- and a 100- to 200-word abstract on their city and its services. At regionals, each team must defend its design before a panel of judges, typically engineers and city planners who pepper the students with questions on everything from constructing geodesic domes to the minutiae of operating a linear induction magnetic train system (one team, by the way, has an actual working model).

First place teams from the 27 qualifying regional competitions receive an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. during National Engineers Week, February 17-23, 2002, for national finals. The team that places first there wins a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

Though usually an extracurricular activity, Future City is being incorporated into the curriculum of a growing number of schools. Often, students fiercely vie for a place on the team that will represent their school at regionals. 

"We have over 100 applicants for 20-30 places in the class," says David Granger, a technology teacher at Drexel Hill Middle School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, which last year won the Philadelphia regional and took third place nationally. Applicants for the eighth-grade course must write an essay, maintain a 3.4 grade average and be interviewed. In early January, each classmate gives a presentation, which is videotaped, to members of the school staff, who then select the team that goes to regionals. Those three will then be drilled by the remaining students for weeks with hundreds of questions meant to represent the gamut of what judges at regionals and, hopefully, nationals may throw at them.

While only a small fraction of the some 30,000 students from 950 schools who participate in Future City go on to nationals, almost all participants receive an unprecedented education in building and operating a city and, in the process, get a firsthand look at many facets of engineering, a major goal of the program and a benefit welcomed by educators.

Marilyn Nelson, Future City co-coordinator for the Minnesota region and a learning consultant at Minnesota's Education Cooperative Service Unit, says tantalizing students with a taste of engineering leads directly to higher interest in math and science. 

"This lets students be mini-engineers," says Nelson, "and lets them think, 'Maybe I should take algebra early if I want to be ready for college to become an engineer.'" She adds that by helping them accept the importance of math and science education, Future City helps make sure students "don't cut themselves out of career options."

Keeping those options open is especially important for minority students and girls, Nelson says. "Future City helps lots of girls and minorities look at engineering as a real option. It's important that they don't write it off."
That's a sentiment wholeheartedly endorsed by Wendy Fenner, P.E., a civil engineer with Clark County, Nevada and coordinator of the Las Vegas Future City region. "If this program was around when I was 13, I probably could have graduated two years earlier," says Fenner, who instead found out relatively late during her secondary education that she wanted to be an engineer. 
The Las Vegas region, a recent addition to the regional Future City roster, has an exceptionally eager booster in Fenner. "I love everything about it," she says, "because it gives students an opportunity to see what engineering is all about, and it's not just math and science." She notes, for example, that the program teaches other crucial engineering components such as time management, communications, cooperation and getting work done on time. "For many children this is the first time they've had to deal with serious deadlines and they have to work on teams to shape ideas. This is a whole different ballgame."

One of the best lessons it shares, she says, "is that it makes children realize that they have talents they might not otherwise see." 

Sometimes those talents are revealed by students not typically associated with such a rigorous academic effort.

"We get all kinds of kids in Future City," says Mark Rivard from Lewiston-Porter Middle School. "We have special education students who struggle with reading but thrive in Future City. It builds their self esteem because it lets them shine, to be the star of the show." 

"Future City taps the best in every child and it taps the best in communities as it brings together schools, parents, volunteer engineers and others for a positive and powerful learning experience," says Carol Rieg, national director of Future City. "That, in turn, benefits the entire community, because every student that goes through Future City gets a whole new appreciation for their own hometown, underscoring the powerful relationship between engineering and every part of our lives, not just today, but also long into the future."

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• The 29 regional sites participating in the 2002 competition are: Albany (NY), Buffalo, Northern California, Southern California, Chicago, Colorado, South Florida, Hampton Roads (VA), Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Las Vegas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Milwaukee, Minnesota, New York City, Northern Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Texas-Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas-Houston, Washington, D.C., and Washington State. For more information visit http://www.futurecity.org.

• The winning team (three students, teacher, and engineer mentor) from each qualifying regional Future City Competition receives an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the national finals. First place national team wins a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, provided by national finals host Bentley Systems, an engineering software company. Second-place team receives a $2,000 scholarship for the school's technology program, sponsored by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. A $1,000 scholarship for the third-place team's school technology curriculum is provided by The National Society of Professional Engineers. Various prizes are presented at regional competitions.

• Maxis, best known for its "Sim" family, develops and publishes top-quality entertainment software that uses advanced simulation technologies to deliver challenging fun through creativity, exploration, and depth of play. To date, players around the world have purchased more than eight million copies in the Sim line including SimCityClassic™, SimCity 2000™, SimCity 3000™, SimAntTM, and SimFarm™. Maxis is based in Walnut Creek, California, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS). Maxis, SimCity 2000, SimCityClassic, SimCity 3000, SimAnt, and SimFarm are trademarks of Electronic Arts. For additional information on Maxis, contact Patrick Buechner at 925-927-3782 or visit http://www.maxis.com.