Fort Couch Earns Innovation Award at Future City Regionals

The team’s presentation was led by Mateo Lin, Rebecca Zahalsky and Sara Alhajhusain. All of Fort Couch’s gifted education students participated in the project under the guidance of Emma McDonnell, gifted education teacher, and Rebecca Maley, Fort Couch librarian.

Eleven schools from across the Pittsburgh region competed in the event, hosted by the Allegheny County Health Department and the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania.

Future City is a national, project-based learning program in which students in grades 6-8 research, write about, design and present cities set 100 years in the future. While teams develop all aspects of their cities, each year’s competition centers on a specific theme. This year, students were challenged to design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table while keeping residents healthy and safe.

“Our students decided to help eliminate food waste in current day Lagos, Nigeria,” Ms. McDonnell said. “By the end of the project, our students redesigned the city into Wadata, which means prosperity and abundance in Hausa.”

As part of the competition, students wrote a 1,500-word essay detailing food waste challenges and their proposed solutions. They also constructed a physical model of their city, developed and performed a skit, and participated in a question-and-answer session with judges.

“Photographs of our completed city model show how innovative and creative the Fort Couch students were this year,” Ms. Maley said. “Still, images aren't enough to explain the hundreds of hours students dedicated to the Future City challenge. The city took months of research, planning, and building, and their final presentation impressed the judges and represents their tremendous efforts.”

Beyond the awards, educators said the competition fosters critical thinking, collaboration and leadership skills.

“The students gain the ability to think through problems they are faced with using their imagination, research and teamwork,” Ms. McDonnell said. “Main components of the challenge are incorporating the engineering design process and project management skills when creating their city.”

For more information about the competition, visit https://eswp.com/students/fc/.