Stoneleigh-Burnham School students are participating in the Future City Competition, a national, project-based learning experience where middle school students imagine, design, and build cities of the future. The theme is “Tomorrow’s Transit: Design A Way To Move People In And Around Your City.” Students team up to design a virtual city using SimCity™ software and build a tabletop scale model of their city using recycled materials costing no more than $100. Heidi Leeds of Gill, MA, Sofia Carlson of Quatar, Elizabeth LaValley of Greenfield, MA, and Renee Xie of Shenzhen Guangdong, China will present their city at the regional competition on Jan. 25 in Boston. More than 40,000 students from 1,350 middle schools are participating nationwide.

“This has been a great learning process for students,” said Taylor Williams, STEaM coordinator. “The team has been able to share their creativity as they imagined, designed, and worked to build a city of the future. It’s been exciting to see the girls engaged in a hands-on engineering project, involved with local engineer Sara Campbell, and discussing how to solve big issues like transportation and energy in the future.”

Sara Campbell, Engineering Superintendent for Greenfield, MA, served as the SBS team’s professional mentor. “They were very enthusiastic and ready to jump into the Sim City computer model at our first meeting. Their different backgrounds will certainly give these girls a unique perspective of what the city of the future should be. The structure of the competition is such that it tests them on a wide range of competencies: their vision, writing, presenting, working within parameters, creative building.”

Since 1869, Stoneleigh-Burnham School has been preparing girls grades 7-12 for college and the world. For more information, visit sbschool.org