Queen of Angels Regional Catholic School's Future City Program takes 2nd place overall in Regional Competition

It begins in the summer, when most students are spending time with friends relaxing. In a classroom at Queen of Angels Regional Catholic School, Willow Grove, Mrs. Diane Hediger and enthusiastic students give up precious free time to begin a six month journey. A journey that will allow them to analyze problems, define solutions, complete virtual models, enhance their writing skills, build scale models and present and defend their solutions when challenged. This isn’t just your average after school program – this is Future City.

The Future City program is run by DiscoverE and has been in existence for over 20+ years. Over 3300 schools of all kinds participate in this national competition each year. The Future City program came to Queen of Angels by way of Our Lady Help of Christians School, one of the two schools that merged in January, 2012. The program there was started by Mrs. Jane Ring and achieved many accolades throughout the years such as best essay, best building design, multiple first place finishes in Philadelphia leading to finals in Washington DC where in 2011 they won first place. Mr. & Mrs. Tom and Julie Gennarro have served as engineer mentors to this team since 1996. The beauty of the Future City program is that it opens the door for students to explore the STEM initiative and find solutions to real world problems.

The program at Queen of Angels is open to 7th and 8th graders and is run completely during non-instructional hours. Mrs. Hediger is a PreK 4 teacher at the school but had such a strong belief in the benefits of this program she stepped in to become their faculty moderator after Mrs. Ring retired from teaching. Lunch periods, after school, days off and Christmas break are non-existent for these students during this process. They are committed to delivering the best possible presentation to live up to the high example students from previous years have set.

It is a rigorous program. There are five deliverables with certain deadlines that have to be met. Once the year’s challenge is released to the teams they quickly have to work to develop their solution, define where their city will be located, build a SimCity model explained by a power point presentation, write an essay to explain their solutions and then build an actual scale model of their city, using only recycled materials and spending no more than $100. While many students participate in all of these aspects of development only three students are allowed to present their 7 minute presentation to the judges. At Queen of Angels, students must audition for these coveted spots in front of a panel of faculty, engineers, and mentors who narrow the field to the “Core Team”. The “Core Team” consists of the three presenters along with two alternates who must learn all parts and be ready to step in at a moment’s notice. This year’s presenters were Ben Lilly, Ryan O’Doherty and Michelle Sicard with Jimmy Casper and Tristan Moore as the alternates.

The students spend hours rehearsing their presentation and reviewing every aspect of the deliverables to be able to answer any question about their solution as well as the overall program. The day before the competition, all the classrooms at Queen of Angels receive a visit from the team, where they complete their presentation and then have to answer student questions. This is a wonderful way the entire school community shows their support for this team. The benefits are great. The presenters get valuable rehearsal time and must learn to think on their feet when posed with a question. The student audiences get a glimpse into what they may be able to achieve in the future. After seeing the presentation in first grade, one of this year’s presenters, Ryan O’Doherty, went home and told his mom he couldn’t wait for his turn.

The regional competition is an all-day affair. This year the competition was held at Archbishop Carroll, where the Core Team spent the day along with Mrs. Hediger and their mentors displaying their models, answering questions from special award judges and then giving their presentation and answering questions during the preliminary round. The competition then moved to the auditorium where the top 6 schools presented their presentation to another panel of engineers and answered questions again, all in front of a large crowd. Queen of Angels’ presentation team was thrilled to look out into the audience to see their principal, Sister Margaret Rose Adams, IHM and many family and team members in the audience to cheer them on. At the end of the day, winners were announced. Queen of Angels was thrilled to come in 2nd place overall this year.

In an interview with the Intelligencer newspaper, the day before the competition, the Core Team members mentioned that more important than winning were the lessons they had learned about working together, solving problems, having fun and making memories that will last them a lifetime. There is no medal or trophy that is better than that!!!

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