Taft middle schoolers in Cedar Rapids advance to nationals in Future City competition

For more than 20 years, the Future City competition has encouraged teams of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students from across the country to imagine day-to-day life at least 100 years from now. This year's theme - Living on the Moon - also encouraged them to imagine life out of this world - on a future lunar colony.

The Future City program is a hands-on learning approach to understand and address big issues. Kids are encouraged to think about how they, as individuals and part of a group, can make the world a better place to live.

Working as a team with an educator and STEM mentor, students worked for several months, developing their vision of the future, writing a 1,500- word essay and building a scale model of their future city using recycled materials. Each team also shot a brief video.

Students were encouraged to consider challenges of living on the moon, 'including no breathable atmosphere; gravity that is only 1/6 of that on Earth; nights that last for 14 Earth days; constant exposure to solar radiation; and dust that's sharp as glass and gets into every crevice.”

Their project needed to address these obstacles and 'provide a detailed description of how the city uses the moon's resources to create a self-sustaining home where humans can live, work and thrive.”

Traditionally, the middle school teams would compete in person, answering questions from a panel of judges, but this year the Iowa regional competition was held online. A total of 31 teams competed at the regional competition Jan. 23. The Lunar Domum team from Taft Middle School in Cedar Rapids won and advances to the national competition, which also will be held virtually. Team members are Emily Henderson, Peyton Kline, Avery Murray and Hannah Pearson.

Other top-finishing teams include the Shackleton City team from Harding, the Cassian team from Franklin, the Archimedes team from Take Action United and the Delos team from Waukee.

The Future City Finals are scheduled for April 2021, where the grand prize includes a trip to U.S. Space Camp and $7,500 for their school's STEM program.

Learn more about the Future City program online at newbo.co/newboco-k-12-education/future-city or facebook.com/NewBoCoK12Education.