The Future City Competition is a national, project-based learning experience where students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade imagine, design and build cities of the future.
This year the competition was held Jan. 24 at California State University, Stanislaus. Three teams from the Morgan Hill Unified School District competed, all from Martin Murphy Junior High School.
Team members Austin Gonzales, Jeremy Esch, Chance Bowman and alternate Caleb Cueba presented their model concept “BiosVille” and earned a spot among the top five finalists. The team finished in fifth place overall out of 37 teams.
BiosVille also earned a special award for “best use of an alternative power source.” The team was mentored by David Gonzales of Morgan Hill and Martin Murphy science teacher Eileen Resnick.
During the Future City Competition, students work as a team with an educator and engineer mentor to plan cities using SimCity software; research and write solutions to an engineering problem; build tabletop scale models with recycled materials; and present their ideas before judges at regional competitions in January. Regional winners represent their region at the National Finals in Washington, DC in February.
