SEQUIM — Your mission, teacher Kevin Burke told his 12 FutureCity students, is to design houses for survivors of a natural or financial disaster.
Then, Burke instructed, build a model community around those homes: one with its own renewable sources of energy, clean industry and sky-high quality of life.
His seventh- and eighth-graders at Olympic Peninsula Academy went to town on this semester’s project.
Then they went to Seattle Center last Saturday for the statewide FutureCity Competition, and won third place, plus the People’s Choice prize from the other contestants from across the region.
As for the rewards they brought home, those include not only a set of trophies, T-shirts and medals, but also an exploration of what might be possible in a city not so different from Sequim.
New Plymouth in 2222
Olivia Kirsch and Karina Morris, both seventh-graders, and Will Duncan, an eighth-grader, gave the oral presentation at Seattle Center of their class’ model and vision: a re-creation of the real city of New Plymouth, New Zealand, fast-forwarded into the year 2222.
The building blocks — the single-family homes — are yurts. The students chose this format, Burke said, because a yurt is a fairly quick-to-erect and inexpensive living space that the inhabitants can add onto and even move across town.
Like Sequim, New Plymouth has a temperate climate and lies near both mountains and sea. In 2222, one of its big industries is the growing of bamboo, a sustainable product that goes into paper, clothing and furniture. There’s also alligator-culture for hide and meat, by farmers who are not faint of heart.
For its power, the city harnesses the ocean, wind and sun, the students explained. And since there is a volcano nearby, it also has access to geothermal energy.
To prevent pollution, everything is built close together, within walking or bicycling distance, while the city has a bicycle-sharing program and a self-contained recycling system.
In addition to the scale model and presentation, the FutureCity project includes a computer simulation and essays — all products of the students’ imaginations as well as their developing skills as researchers and urban engineers.
‘Brainstormed ideas’
“We all brainstormed ideas for our city and worked together on the model,” Kirsch said. “If anyone had a good idea, we tried to work it in.”
Burke added that the students’ parents also collaborated on the project, providing materials and insight.
At Olympic Peninsula Academy, the Sequim School District’s program for home-schooled students, the class is billed as neither science nor a social studies, Burke added. The course is simply titled FutureCity.
“It’s a good exercise,” to look into the future and imagine a healthy city, he said. “I like that they’re given a blank slate.”
Thirteen teams competed at Seattle Center this year, said FutureCity Competition spokeswoman Tanya Panomvana.
The second-place winners came from the St. Patrick School in Pasco, while Three Rivers Homelink school in Richland took first place, so its students will travel to Washington, D.C., for the national FutureCity contest during National Engineers Week from Feb. 13 through 16.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
