Left: Presenters who will represent Heritage in Washington, D.C. are (left to right) Maggie Mehlo, Jeffrey Siefker and Grace Dicus. Right: Team Heritage captured first place at the State Future City competition.
On Saturday, January 12, seventh and eighth grade students from Heritage Middle School competed against a number of teams from Ohio in the State DiscoverE’s Future City Competition, held at the Eastland Career Center. When the event concluded, the team from Heritage Middle School came out on top – for the second year in a row!
Heritage pupils, who presented their city Meri Heima (meaning A Greater Home,) took first place in the state contest. They will represent Ohio in the National Future City Competition in Washington D.C., beginning on February 16. The team, led by teachers Anne Bates and Shannon Ball, along with engineer Erik McPeek from the Delaware County Regional Sewer District, also took first place for Best Use of Ceramics, Honorable Mention for Best Architectural Model and People’s Choice Award.
Presenters who will represent Heritage in Washington, D.C. are Maggie Mehlo, Grace Dicus, Jeffrey Siefker. Team members are Jon Stowers, Mollie Kinkaid, Kaedance Cicchino, Sammy Gurgiolo, Eli Tansey, James Weaver, Ryan King, Kat Kojis, Shrey Shyamalan, Thuraya Hamed, Nabiha Mohamud, Michaela Dorsey, and Bekah Pyle.
Also competing was a team from Walnut Springs Middle School. “Hidden Springs” was the name of the Future City created by students Cori Bohan, Colleen Lynch, Claudia Stanton, Izzy Williams, Monae Braxton, Emma Blanchong, Brooke Jones, Sophia Wright and Natalie Ma. They were advised by teacher Phil Carney and engineer/mentor Nate Lang from the City of Westerville. Walnut Springs won an award for Best Use of Recycled Materials.
The four-month-long contest consists of several components. Teams wrote a 1,500-word essay on the topic Powering Our Future. This year’s competition asked participants to design a resilient power grid that can withstand and quickly recover from the impacts of a natural disaster. In addition to the essay, pupils completed a computer component using SimCity software, created an engineering project plan, built a scale model of their city of the future using mostly recycled materials, and prepared a presentation to share their city highlights at the state competition.
The Future City Competition is a national, not-for-profit education program, with more than 40,000 students from 1,350 middle schools typically participating. Learn more at www.futurecity.org.