UPDATE - Thanks to our generous and supportive community, friends, and families we have now updated our goal here! Donors have contributed with checks and cash through our school, as well as donating here, so we are getting closer to our overall goal! Please share with others to help us reach our total!
Future City starts with a question—how can we make the world a better place? To answer it, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future that showcase their solution to a citywide sustainability issue. Past topics include stormwater management, urban agriculture, public spaces, and green energy. The 2022-2023 theme is Climate Change. The student chooses a climate change impact and design one innovative and futuristic climate change adaptation and one mitigation strategy to keep their residents healthy and safe.
Participants complete five deliverables: a 1,500-word city essay; a scale model built from recycled materials; a project plan; a presentation to judges at Regional Competitions in January, and Questions and Answers. Regional winners represent their region at the Finals in Washington, DC in February. This was the 19th Idaho Region competition and 30th Nationally. Future City started in 1992-1993 in just five cities and with 200 students. Today, 45,000 students around the globe learn how engineers make the world a better place, including Canada, Africa, and China.
A quote from Mentor, Meghann Donley: “The Future City program is near and dear to me since I helped start the Idaho Future City Region back in 2002. I was at the very first planning meeting and held the first competition in January of 2004. I served as the Judging Coordinator for 10 years. When I moved to Garden Valley, I passed the torch over to Mariah Fowler who has been an amazing replacement. I then took on the next challenge to create a team in Garden Valley with the help of Mr. Phil Arnold, the Gifted and Talented Advisor, and started an extracurricular school program. The last 6 years I have been blessed to be the mentor to some very driven and talented middle schoolers in Garden Valley with the support of Deonna Hollist and Lisa Willey as educators.
Our first year we had one team and ended up winning 4th place at the Regional Competition at BSU with mostly 6th graders and have continued to perform strongly and place in the top 5 annually. In 2020 we WON the Idaho Regional Competition and placed 5th in the nation! This year our teams placed 1st and 2nd! Therefore, we are fundraising to take all 3 teams (19 students) to Washington D.C. to compete and support the 1st place team. The first place team will represent Idaho at the 30th National Future City Finals February 17-22. I am just so incredibly proud of all of these amazing kids and the support of their parents, and Future City Alumni. Of course, I could not have done this without my educators Deonna Hollist, Lisa Willey, and Phil Arnold who met with the teams and I for over 100 hours and 40 days over the course of 6 months!!! These middle schoolers (3 teams) worked every Friday, and more as deliverables approached, and have been meeting 3 times a week for 3 hours since before Christmas to be competitive against 31 teams in Idaho.
We are asking for a donation to help send all 19 students with their Mentor and Educators to Nationals. The three presenters of Hexagonia, plus Deonna (Educator) and Meghann (Mentor) have their flights and hotel paid for. However, we are fundraising to send the 16 other students, Phil Arnold and Lisa Willey (Educators for the other 2 teams) and Future City Alumni Advisors, plus pay for food and transportation for all 23 of them.
Please let us know if you can help support us. We greatly appreciate your consideration and any amount would be wonderful.
