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Middle School Students Have Designs on Future: Contest Draws on Math, Science, Practical Skills

Posted on: Sunday, 29 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Melodee Hall Blobaum, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Jan. 29--"It's a good simulation of an engineering project."

Rob Sorem, associate dean of KU's School of Engineering

If middle school students designed cities, people might get from place to place on magnetic sidewalks.

Industry might be located underground, and suburbs in the middle of a metropolitan area.

Lasers might protect cities from lightning and the occasional falling meteor or air attack.

"Just in case," said Emily Miller, a member of the Overland Park middle school team that won the Great Plains Regional Future Cities Competition held Saturday at the University of Kansas. "It can happen."

Middle school students used a hefty dose of imagination to design cities.

But they also honed math, science and research skills and got a taste of real-world engineering.

"This is what we do as engineers," said Rob Sorem, associate dean of KU's School of Engineering. "It's a good simulation of an engineering project."

He said engineering students arrive on campus well prepared in terms of math and science. But they don't always have a grasp of the practical side of the profession.

Competitions like the one held Saturday help students see how professionals use math and science, and serve as a recruiting tool as well.

Emily, for example, is planning a career in medicine. But her research for the project introduced her to biomedical engineering.

"There are so many jobs I didn't even know about," said Emily, who attends Westridge Middle School in Overland Park.

In all, 50 teams of middle school students from across Kansas and the metropolitan area arrived on campus ready to defend their dream cities before a panel of engineers.

But their work had begun long before they arrived in Lawrence. Students designed a metropolis using the Sim City computer game. They built a scale model, and wrote an abstract describing the city and its services, and an essay solving the problem of redeveloping a strip mall.

Ben Schmitt, Jacob Lindenlaub and Anthony Frook, all of Shawnee, began work in October on Expono Abs. That's Latin for outside in, and they chose the name because they put their suburbs in the middle.

"That puts residents close to shops and makes it easier to get everyplace," said Anthony, 13.

They also created magnetic sidewalks that use personal transportation devices to move people from place to place.

When it came time to figure out how to redevelop a strip mall that once had housed a gas station, grocery store and restaurant, they made a trip to Shawnee City Hall and asked city planners for advice.

Their city won third place in the competition. Ben and Jacob are students at Trailridge Middle School in Lenexa. Anthony attends Good Shepherd Catholic School in Shawnee.

The second place team was from Holy Trinity School in Lenexa.

First place winners from Westridge designed "Zenith," which they located on the northern coast of New Zealand. They placed industry underground, both to protect the environment and deal with the reality of limited space in the nation.

"There isn't room to expand horizontally," said team member Leigha Empson.

Though the team was made up of eight members, Leigha, Emily and David Blank did the presentations Saturday. And they'll be the ones to travel to Washington, D.C., for the national competition next month.

This is the third year that a team from Westridge has won the competition.

The Overland Park middle school in the Shawnee Mission School District fielded 10 teams. All of the participants were in the school's gifted program, taught by Vonda Morris.

She said the competition was a great way to expand her students' skills in areas such as leadership, public speaking and creative expression.

With the federal No Child Left Behind Act focusing attention on math and reading proficiency, Morris said Saturday's competition provided an incentive for high-achieving students to go above and beyond.

And, her students say, it's a lot more fun than preparing for math tests.

"We have focus lessons every day to prepare for the math tests," Emily said. "But with this, we can challenge ourselves and be creative. You can't be creative in focus lessons."

To reach Melodee Hall Blobaum, Johnson County education reporter, call (816) 234-7733 or send e-mail to mblobaum@kcstar.com .

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

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Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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