Capital District Future City Competition is set for January 21 at Proctors

George Amedore; Kathleen Jimino; Angelo Santabarbara; Carrie Woerner Support Capital District Middle School Students as they vie for national recognition in annual Future City® Competition Regional Finals, January 21 at Proctors

This year's theme is:
The Power of Public Space

 Albany, New York – Public spaces have the capacity to revitalize a city’s economy by introducing new businesses and bringing in new visitors. They can also help reduce crime, ease traffic congestion, improve pedestrian safety, promote healthy living, improve the environment, and enhance civic engagement. A recent study by the UN-Habitat’s Global Urban Observatories Unit found that cities that devoted 50% of their space to public use tended to be more prosperous and have a higher quality of life.

Celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2016-17, this year’s Future City® Competition poses these questions and more as it asks middle school students to address the power of public space and challenges them to design innovative, multi-use public spaces that serve a city’s diverse population.

The Capital District competition will be held on Saturday, January 21st at Proctors in Schenectady.  In the Capital District region, there are 20 schools with a total of 27 teams competing in the Future City Regional Finals. There are approximately 375 local students participating in the competition this year. Our regional students join more than 40,000 middle school students from 1,350 schools in 37 regions around the country, all of whom are engaged in similar competitions.

First place winners from each qualifying regional competition receive a trip to the Future City Competition Finals in Washington, D.C., February 18-21, 2017, during Engineers Week.

Teams/schools competing in this year’s competition include:

“This being our 16th year locally and the Future City program’s 25th year nationally, it is wonderful to see how many middle school students have become excited about pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) due to this program,” said Diane Bertok, Future City Albany’s Regional Coordinator. “This year’s topic of creating innovative public spaces for the community is an issue that we see many of our local municipalities currently addressing, which provided the students some real-life examples of this issue. In addition, this year we were excited to hear that the William S. Hackett Middle School received a $500 grant stipend through the Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction, which will allow them to purchase a laptop computer and go on some STEM-related field trips.”

The Capital District Future City Competition is anticipating the attendance of the following dignitaries:

·         George Amedore, New York State Senator

·         Angelo Santabarbara, Assemblymember

·         Carrie Woerner, Assemblymember

·         Kathleen M. Jimino, Rensselaer County Executive

The Future City Competition is a project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future. Keeping the engineering design process and project management front and center, students are asked to address an authentic, real-world question: How can we make the world a better place?

One of the nation’s leading engineering education programs, Future City has received national recognition and acclaim for its role in encouraging middle schoolers nation-wide to develop their interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In 2016, the Future City Competition was the recipient of the 2016 Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction, presented by Turner Construction Company and the National Building Museum.

Working in a team with an educator and engineer mentor, students present their public space solutions and vision of their future city in a virtual city design (using SimCity™ software); a 1,500 word city description; a scale model of their city built with recycled materials; and in a short presentation to a panel of STEM professionals. Teams from 37 regions present their ideas at the regional competition in January. Winners represent their regions at the National Finals in Washington, DC in February.
 

About Future City® Competition

DiscoverE’s annual Future City Competition, for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students, is held from September 2015 through February 2016. Future City is a major program of DiscoverE, a consortium of professional and technical societies and major U.S. corporations, and culminates every year during Engineers Week. For more information, visit www.futurecity.org.

About DiscoverE

DiscoverE is leading a growing volunteer movement that inspires and informs present and future generations to discover engineering. Our network of volunteers in the US and abroad is drawin from the Discover E coalition of more than 100 professional societies, major corporations, and government agencies. Together we meet a vital need: introducing students, parents, and educators to engineering, engaging them in hands-on engineering experiences and making science and math relevant. For more information, visit www.discovere.org.

For more information, contact:

Christine Kingery, Director of Marketing
Spectra Environmental Group
19 British American Blvd.
Latham, NY 12110
Office: (518) 782-0882
Cell: (518) 366-5759
ckingery@spectraenv.com

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