Fernandina Beach FL News Leader. The local news source for Amelia Island and Fernan...
Page 1 of 2
search
articles
Search Our Archive February 03, 2014
Home Subscribe
E-Edition
News
Our Region
Our Local Community
Contact Us
Send Your News
Advertise
Subscribe
Marketplace
Classifieds
Legals
Contact Us
About Us
Sign In
We built this city . . . 4 days ago | 0
|9
|
|
Heather A. Perry, News-Leader Yulee Middle School sent 22 students to the Future City Competition in Tampa on Jan. 25, the only Nassau County school participating in the competition. Future City is a national, project-based learning experience in which sixth through eighth grade students imagine, design and build cities of the future. YMS science teacher J.T. Medley, Kassidy Cox, Lauren Coursen, David Alexander, Zane McKendree and Terry Shaw, team mentor, with their Future City project model, Y-Town.
“Students work as a team with an educator and engineer mentor to plan cities using SimCity software; research and write solutions to an engineering problem; build tabletop scale models with recycled materials; and present their ideas before judges,” said Joe Medley, YMS science teacher. The program gives students the opportunity to apply math and science to real-world issues; develop writing, public writing, public speaking, problem solving and time management skills; research and propose solutions to engineering challenges; discover different types of engineering and explore career options; learn how their communities work and become better citizens; and develop strong teamwork skills. The 22 YMS students were separated into four teams and spent one hour each school day on the project that is a big part of their grade. Kassidy Cox, 13, said Future City allowed her to be creative and visualize what the future may hold. “The name of our city is Y-Town, short for Yulee, of course! We designed a city that uses solar and wind power. Our future forms of transportation include a Sky-Tram and electric powered self -driving cars.” Seventh grader Jordan Bell says Future City is cool because it has shown him all of the new technology and ways lives may change over the next 50 years and how science applies to the real world. Sabryn Flagler and her team worked on a city named H.A.P.S. (Highly Advanced Power Systems). “We have designed a bridge as a main focus of our model. Our future forms of transportation are air-compressed cars and maglev (magnetic levitation) trains as energy saving alternatives to today’s transportation.” Flagler said participation is a good way for students to express themselves in a positive way and learn to be open to trying new things. All four teams built virtual cities, helping them learn how a city develops and changes over time. “They were able to see how decisions of where roads, schools, hospitals, power plants and industrial areas affect how their city progresses,” said Medley. “They were frustrated early on and even had to start over several times. The students had great ideas, but didn’t quite grasp the overall picture, that a lot of planning has to go into developing a city.”
http://www.fbnewsleader.com/view/full_story_free/24490431/article-We-built-this-city-----... 2/3/2014