Saint Gilbert Students Help Design the City of the Future

As part of National Engineers Week, more than 40,000 students from across the world competed in the National Future City Competition, a project-based learning program where students get to imagine, research, and build the cities of the future. Saint Gilbert Catholic School participated, contributing a Future City team of 6th, 7th and 8th graders who entered the regional competition in Chicago winning the Most Innovative Fire Protection Design award.

This honor was four months in the making as these students worked together to design a futuristic city. Beginning with a virtual city utilizing the SimCity game, students learned about the basic mechanics of city development. To provide a real world understanding, the team visited Grayslake Village Hall to ask questions about how their own city functions and then to apply this to their futuristic city, Techoria. One sixth grader, Paul, enjoyed this visit saying, “I learned how a city works.” Armed with this information of urban development and with the help of mentor Tony Repp, they improved Techoria.

The Future City Competition tasked students with identifying an age-related challenge and engineering two innovative solutions that would allow Techoria’s senior citizens to be as active and independent as they want to be. Students researched ways to make their city age-friendly for senior citizens and wrote an essay about their futuristic car, the Blitzwagen, which was designed to provide seniors with a safer way to get around by applying the latest technology.

This was not all the team was tasked to do. Students also needed to construct a scale model of the city out of recycled materials. This was a particularly fun part of the activity: “I liked building the city and cooperating with others,” said Kurt. After discussing the zoning of the city, students put their creativity to work constructing apartment buildings, roads, a fire station, police station and train station, the Blitzwagen dealership, parks, as well as a variety of shops.

The project culminated with a presentation to judges from various engineering backgrounds. The students did a great job as seen by the result and are looking forward to next year's competition. But, even with the end of the competition, the work is never over: Students continue to reflect on how they could improve their city for next year, whether it be planning out better building locations, improving their presentation, or using a smaller scale to fit more elements into the city. Hopefully, these students will create another award-winning city next year.

The School sees significant reasons why this competition is important to its students. After taking part, students repeatedly report that the program increases their motivation and excitement about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). In addition, students and teachers report a marked improvement in students’ 21st Century skills. The program is also award winning – winning the 2017 STEM Mentoring Award for Most Innovative Hand on Project, the 2016 Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction and 2015 Grand Prize for Most Innovative Education Award. (https://futurecity.org/)

Saint Gilbert is a Pre-K through 8th Grade Catholic School celebrating 73 years of providing quality education to the Grayslake Community. It was named a 2017 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by the Department of Education. With STEM programs and clubs focusing on Coding, Robotics, Future City and a dedicated staff, the school sets students on a trajectory for success in the 21st Century. Interested in learning more? Come visit us on the web at www.stgilbertschool.org or our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Saint-Gilbert-Catholic-School-126504574087725/. Arrange a tour by calling 847-223-8600 or by emailing school.office@saintgilbertschool.org.