Future City Engineering

​FUTURE CITY ENGINEERING INFORMATION

What Is Future City Engineering?

Future City starts with a question—how can we make the world a better place? To answer it, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future that showcase their solution to a citywide sustainability issue. Past topics include stormwater management, urban agriculture, public spaces, and green energy. 

This year’s theme

Farm To Table

Design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table and keeps your citizens healthy and safe.

Participants complete five deliverables: a 1,500-word city essay; a scale model (or multiple model segments) built from recycled materials; a project plan, a presentation, and a Q&A session with judges. Regional winners represent their region at the international Finals. After completing Future City, student participants are not only prepared to be citizens of today’s complex and technical world, but also poised to become the drivers of tomorrow.

Engineering and so much more

This flexible, cross-curricular educational program gives students an opportunity to do the things that engineers do—identify problems; brainstorm ideas; design solutions; test, retest and build; and share their results. This process is called the engineering design process. With this at its center, Future City is an engaging way to build students’ 21st century skills. Students participating in Future City:

• Apply math and science concepts to real-world issues

• Develop writing, public speaking, problem solving, and time management skills

• Research and propose solutions to engineering challenges

• Discover different types of engineering and explore careers options

• Learn how their communities work and become better citizens

• Develop strong time management and project management skills

Overview: Farm to Table Challenge 

While humans once grew food wherever they lived, today most of our food travels to us from far away. Modern cities make it easy to get groceries from the store—but at a cost. The way we grow, package, and throw away food creates problems for our planet. In fact, about 40% of all food produced ends up wasted, even as 783 million people around the world go hungry. 

Consider all the steps it takes to get food to your plate: farmers grow it, trucks move it, stores sell it, and finally, you eat it—or maybe you don’t. But wasted food doesn’t just disappear in a landfill—food waste takes up 28% of the world’s agricultural area, uses 25% of all water used by agriculture each year, and creates about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

That’s why cities of the future need to rethink how food moves through our lives. One big idea is using the principles of circular economy along the food production pathway —a system where instead of throwing things away, we find ways to reuse, recycle, or repurpose them. 

In recent years, engineers, scientists, farmers, manufacturers, and city planners are coming up with exciting new solutions like using waste products to feed livestock, designing reusable food packaging, and using smart bins that turn scraps into compost or energy. These systems don’t just eliminate waste, they protect the planet and keep communities strong. 

The students’ challenge: Design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table and keeps your citizens healthy and safe. 

There will be a Future City Engineering Info meeting on October 8 at 5:30 PM in Room 224 for all parents interested in hearing about this awesome activity for middle school students this year!  Watch this website and the principal's newsletter for more information about the date and location for this meeting

Interested students will meet with Mrs. Reese at WRMS during Wildcat Time in September to learn about this program.  If the student is interested, s/he will be asked to complete a form which will need to be signed by a parent.