January/February 2017

Variables
25 Years of Imagining the Future

Future City Competition celebrates the fun of engineering exploration

HYDE PARK MIDDLE SCHOOL, LAS VEGAS, 2016

This year marks 25 years of giving middle school students a hands-on, cross-curricular engineering experience for DiscoverE’s Future City Competition, a project-based learning program where students imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future through both computer and real-world models.

To celebrate, DiscoverE is highlighting the students, educators, mentors, volunteers, and partners who have helped transform the competition into an international program that serves more than 40,000 students a year. Here is a sampling of what DiscoverE has been sharing.

Anna Gunn-Golkin

Nevada

“Future City teaches students that if you want to be a good engineer, you have to learn how to be a good communicator,” Gunn-Golkin says. “Working as a team with a teacher and engineer mentor, writing the essay, and presenting your model are great ways to build these skills at a young age.”

Gunn-Golkin competed in 1996. Her team won the regional competition in Philadelphia and they were excited to compete in the finals in Washington, DC. Now a flight test engineer for the Air Force, she volunteers her time at the Nevada regional competitions as a judge and has volunteered as a mentor. She hopes to be a role model for kids in the competition.

“I am able to show students how engineering applies to real life, and how they can make a career out of it,” she says. “It’s a rewarding experience.”

Nicole Penn

North Carolina

Nicole Penn has volunteered as an educator in Future City’s North Carolina region since 2011.

“In Greensboro, North Carolina, the Future City Competition gives students a chance to travel and explore, which not many have,” she says. “They also get to meet real local engineers, which shows them that engineering is a career that is in their reach.”

Penn encourages other teachers to sign up to volunteer for the program. “This program is so well organized,” she says. “All of the resources you need are right at your fingertips, which makes it very easy for teachers to implement the program.”

Randy Bachman

Iowa

Randy Bachman, a Future City mentor for the Iowa Region, is entering his 17th year with the Future City Competition. He began as a judge in 1999. When his daughters competed in the Iowa Future City Competition in 2008, he made the switch to mentoring local teams.

“Kids love the program, and they also learn a great deal,” he says. “I never tell the students too much about the project. I prefer to let them come up with the ideas on their own. It is always great watching them figure it out for themselves. The kids grow right before your eyes.”

Bachman is a proponent of teaching kids about engineering early. “Engineering is a critical area of study for students because everything you learn can be put to use in the real world. If you have an engineering background, you will always be able to find a job. Engineers help make the world a better and safer place.”

LEFT: SOUTHWEST MIDDLE SCHOOL, LAWRENCE, KANSAS, 2016; RIGHT: AL-HADI SCHOOL OF ACCELERATIVE LEARNING, HOUSTON, 2016