Future City Experience – written and submitted by Alcandor Lui (Elementary Curriculum Committee member)
To all the young future engineers looking to put on their hard hats and safety goggles, registration is now open for the Future City Experience: Living on the Moon!
This is a competition that is open to students in Grades 6, 7 and 8 and educators who have not previously participated in the Future City Competition. Students will be using engineering design processes to research, design, and build a model for a city that could exist 100 years from now.
This year’s theme is “Living on the Moon”. All participants will be tasked to design a lunar city and provide examples of how the future city uses two Moon resources to keep residents safe and healthy. There will also be virtual panel discussions and panellists will consist of engineers and scientists. These panellists will discuss how their work applies to this year’s theme of developing a lunar city and as an added bonus, they will provide insight to students about how to explore a career in STEM.
Future City Experience panel discussions will be offered in both English and French on a Youtube live stream. The English panel discussion will be taking place on February 2, 2022 from 12:00pm-1:30pm EST and the French panel discussion is scheduled for February 9, 2022 from 12:00pm-1:30pm EST.
The Task
Students will be working in teams with an educator and a STEM volunteer to build a physical model and or multiple model segments of their future city. All models must be made primarily out of recycled materials. All models or segments must consist of one or more moving parts, and the moving part(s) will be demonstrated in a short video. Teams will submit photos, a video, and brief descriptions of their lunar city to a panel of engineers using the provided template.
Additional Support
To support educators and students, Engineers Canada has partnered with Engineers of Tomorrow and Ontario Tech University to provide classrooms, home schools, and Girl Guide and Scout units with the following: 1) Virtual mentor, 2) Live Q&As, and 3) Student and educator resources. The program will end with a National Showcase on May 11, 2022 from 12:00pm-3:00pm EST hosted by Ontario Tech University. Teams are invited to present their lunar cities to a panel of engineers and each team will receive feedback on their models.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so register soon! The deadline to register is Friday, January 28, 2022.
Register here: https://exploreengineering.ca/future-city-canada/future-city-2022-registration