Ohio sixth, seventh and eighth grade students from ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Batavia Middle School are participating in DiscoverE’s Future City Competition™ on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015, at Columbus State Community College (CSCC) in Columbus.

What began in 1992 as a model project to encourage math and science skills and lay a foundation for engineering careers has become the nation’s largest engineering education program. This year, students from 19 schools around Ohio will design a virtual future city using SimCity™ software.

The Future City Competition introduces students to different engineering fields, such as civil, electrical, chemical, agricultural, biomedical, mechanical, computer software and hardware engineering. Competing also gives students a chance to improve writing, public speaking, teamwork, time management, problem-solving and new computer skills. Above all, Future City enables students to turn their vision of the future into reality.

With the help of their teacher advisor, Mary Bradburn and a local engineering mentor, the Batavia Middle School team builds a concept model of a city of the future, writes a narrative and develops an essay on the topic of “Feeding Future Cities,” which challenges students to think about how to produce enough food for the planet’s growing population.

Teams are eligible to compete for awards in a variety of categories including: infrastructure, recreation, transportation, use of recycled materials, use of water resources, engineering, most insurable city, rookie of the year and people’s choice. The Ohio regional competition is sponsored in part by PPG, American Electric Power, Sigma-Aldrich, Xylem, CSCC, Ohio EPA, Ohio University’s Russ College of Engineering and others.

The Ohio region winning team (three students, teacher and engineering mentor) receives an all-expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. to participate in the national finals on Feb. 14 -18, 2015.

The Future City Competition is a national, not-for-profit education program. Across the country, more than 40,000 students from 1,350 schools are participating in the 2015 competition. For more information contact Future City Ohio at www.futurecity.org/ohio.