Sayville Middle School Students Participate In Future City Competition

SAYVILLE, NY — Sayville Middle School students stepped into the roles of engineers, city planners, and innovators this January while competing in the Future City Competition in New York City.

The international STEM program challenges middle school students to design a fully functioning city set 100 years in the future, encouraging participants to apply science, technology, engineering, and math concepts to real-world challenges.

This year, Sayville fielded two teams — one from 7th grade and one from 8th grade. Notably, Sayville’s 8th-grade team marked the school’s first group to compete in the program for a second consecutive year, allowing students to build on prior experience.

Each year, the Future City Competition features a new theme. This year’s focus, Farm to Table, challenged students to envision future cities that locally produce food, reduce waste, and sustainably support growing populations through innovative infrastructure, resource management and daily living solutions.

“Watching our students think critically, collaborate, and turn big ideas into real solutions was incredibly rewarding,” said Jeffrey Goodman, Sayville Middle School co-advisor for student academic competitions. “The Future City Competition challenged them to apply STEM skills in meaningful ways, and they truly rose to the occasion.”

Both Sayville teams devoted significant time and effort to the competition, which included developing detailed project plans, writing an essay describing life in their future city, constructing a large-scale physical model, and delivering a formal presentation to a panel of judges. Students also met with 10 special-area judges — professional engineers working on complex projects throughout New York City — who evaluated their designs through in-depth discussions.

The Sayville 7th-grade team consisted of Grant Kauter, Colby Gavin, Leo Chung, and Lucan Chung, with additional support from Avery Gilbert and Zoe Furshpan. Their city design emphasized quality of life through thoughtful zoning, placing residential areas near essential services while separating commercial and industrial districts. The team also highlighted the importance of healthy living by incorporating parks, nature preserves, and a sports arena into their design.

Sayville’s 8th-grade team — Isabella Lipari, Divya Nav,i and Rosalie Parisi, supported by Emma Lochner — returned to the competition with confidence and experience. Their city featured vertical farming towers to maximize crop production while preserving land for livestock through urban farming. The team also designed a high-tech transportation system to efficiently distribute food and minimize waste. Remaining food waste was composted on an industrial scale to support soil health and continued food production.

The innovative approach earned the 8th-grade team a special award for Best Farm-to-Table System, along with a third-place overall finish.

“Our students demonstrated learning at its very best through creativity, collaboration and real-world problem-solving,” said Dominic Armano, Principal of Lincoln Avenue Elementary in Sayville. “We are incredibly proud of how both teams represented Sayville with innovation, professionalism and a strong commitment to STEM excellence.”