Page 9 - SRNS_Today_February_2021

FEBRUARY 2021 | SRNS TODAY | 9

Living on the Moon

Future City Regional Competition

eams of middle school students from across South
Carolina recently participated in this year’s virtual
Future City Regional Competition, providing a look at
how cities might thrive and grow 100 years from now
on the moon. The team from Spartanburg, McCracken Middle
School took first place.
“All of our SRNS educational outreach programs have been impacted
by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Taylor Rice, SRNS Education
Outreach. “We’ve worked with the region’s school systems, our
volunteers and IT professionals to discover and implement innovative
solutions to this ongoing challenge.”
Rice noted that due to the normal complexity of the Future City
competition and the fact it involves various components for judging,
technological hurdles during the academic year have been daunting. The McCracken Middle School team
The virtual version of the competition proved to be a success, with won first place in the Future City
students from Kennedy Middle School winning second place (Team Regional Competition.
Odyssey Outpost) and third place (Team Celestial Station).

Future City starts with a question, “How can we make the world develop a deep sense of understanding of the STEM fields (science,
a better place?” To answer it, students imagine, research, design technology, engineering and mathematics). Future City empowers
and build cities of the future that showcase their solutions to a them to push the boundaries of what they think they can do. They
sustainability issue. suddenly realize that they can speak in front of large groups and
create innovative technologies. Future City has helped my students
This year’s topic, Living on the Moon, challenged students to design achieve a sense of independence that they have never had before.”
a future lunar city and provide examples of how their city uses two
moon resources to keep their citizens safe and healthy. This cross-curricular educational program gives students the
opportunity to do things engineers do: identify problems; learn the
Participants completed five deliverables: a 1,500-word essay; specs and brainstorm solutions; design solutions; build, test and
a scale model built from recycled materials; a project plan; a retest; and share their results. Future City provides an engaging way
presentation video; and a virtual, online question and answer session to build students’ skills, while they apply math and science concepts
with judges. The first-place team will represent South Carolina at the to real-world problems.
International Finals.
“I cannot imagine being able to complete this project without the
To be successful, students use a variety of skill sets and interests, like support of SRNS. From supplying engineer mentors to funding the
creative problem solving, building scale models, researching, writing registration fees, they have truly given us the chance to participate
and public speaking.
in this amazing program,” said Dobbs. “Many of my students have
“Future City has become a valuable part of our school,” said Amber now been exposed to careers at SRNS and have serious interest in
Bryan Dobbs, science teacher at Merriwether Middle School. “The becoming engineers one day because of this program and all the work
students who participate not only learn how to work together, but they that they do.”

Now accepting teachers’ applications for mini grants

SRNS is now accepting applications for the Innovative Mini Grants Richmond counties in Georgia may participate.
Program, a competitive process that rewards innovative elementary Beginning this year, educators can submit grant applications
and middle school educators in science, technology, engineering online. A rule change has been put into effect, as well; for Category
and mathematics (STEM). A ($500), Category B ($750) or Category C ($1,000) grants,
Public and private teachers in Aiken, Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell educators may apply as a single applicant or as a team with no
and Edgefield counties in South Carolina, and Columbia and more than three members.

To apply, visit: https://www.srs.gov/general/outreach/edoutrch/mini_grant.htm