City of Tomorrow

City of Tomorrow
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,1880990,00.html
Middle school students build a winning, eco-friendly city for the future
By Vickie An

Imagine an eco-conscious city where rooftops have been transformed into fertile, green gardens. It's a place where every home is equipped with a system that recycles valuable water resources. In this town, protecting the planet is a way of life. That's how Abby Sharp, 14, Wyatt Peery, 13, and Tom Krajnak, 14, saw their city of tomorrow. The vision won the eighth-graders from Bexley, Ohio, first prize at the 2009 National Engineers Week Future City Competition.
K.R.R. PHOTOGRAPHY, LTD.This green city of the future was designed by Ohio students Abby Sharp, Wyatt Peery and Tom Krajnak. They named the city Novo Mondum, which means ew world?in Latin.
The annual design competition challenges middle school students to use engineering to tackle issues that affect the earth. This year the competition focused on water conservation. Participants had to come up with ways to improve water use in the home. Kids from 38 middle schools across the country competed in the finals. The event took place from February 17-18 in Washington, D.C. More than 30,000 students entered the competition.
A Whole New World
Abby, Wyatt and Tom call their winning city Novo Mondum. The name means "new world" in Latin. Novo Mondum sits on the coast of Iceland. The group chose the spot for its wealth of clean energy resources, such as geothermal energy and hydropower. Both sources use the power of nature to generate electricity. Geothermal energy draws heat from deep inside the Earth. Hydropower harnesses energy from flowing water. "Our city is very globally aware," Abby told TFK.
Students team up with a teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor to develop their cities. Each group creates a fictional city on SimCity 4 Deluxe, a computer game that allows players to build virtual towns. Then they construct tabletop models of the cities and write essays describing their project. The models must be made using recycled materials and cost no more than $100 to build.
"Every year we present these kids with really tough engineering issues, and they continually astound us with their knowledge, ideas and solutions for the future," says Bill Knight, Future City National Program Manager.
Future Engineers of America
Organizers hope the competition is a fun way to get kids energized about engineering. It certainly got the winning team thinking about futures in the field. "Engineers are involved in every aspect of building a city," Tom says. "We discovered how necessary they are." Wyatt adds, "The competition taught us how to think on our feet."
The grand-prize winners will receive a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Competition sponsor Bentley Systems, Inc., will provide classroom sets of engineering software for each of the schools of the top three teams.

Astound-使震驚;使大驚

Max-The grand prize students in the competition on Engineering Week are very excellent. In this year, the competitors need to organize a city that needs to improve water use. More than 30,000 competitors entered the race, and the winning team came up with a beautiful scenery in the city. The name of the city is called Novo Mondum, which is “new world” in Latin. In the engineering picture, it consists a tall building, some weird houses, and an earth-like water works. The city sits in Iceland. I think this engineering competition can let the middle school students build our future world and our future home when they grow up.