Creative thinking a lunar life
Students compete in program to explain how to live on the moon
Students across the Capital Region were able to remotely compete in the 20th annual Future City Competition on Saturday, with the national program asking students to present creative solutions to “living on the moon.”
The competition is normally held each year at a local college, but organizers asked the 150 students competing this year to instead present their projects over Zoom.
“Between quarantining, remote and hybrid learning, working from home, and just not knowing what is going to happen from one day to the next, we all have had to become more creative and flexible in how we do things and still be able to get it all done,” said Diane Bertok, the regional coordinator for Future City.
Katie Duell, a science teacher at Burnt Hills-ballston Lake's O’rourke Middle School, said her students were incredibly resilient as they worked on their project this year. Her students on Friday were meeting one last time in preparation for their presentation, going
over why the moon’s Amundsen crater is best suited for living: “There’s lunar ice, which can be turned into water,” a student explained.
They went over how residents would lead healthy lives at Spartemis, the name of their theoretical lunar city: “To maintain proper bone mass, calcium supplements, extracted from regolith and mixed with other healthy minerals, are distributed to citizens,” the students wrote in their report for judges, who watched video presentations on Saturday morning.
They asked students about their cities on the moon, as well as how they overcame challenges, like when disagreements came up or engineering issues arose.
On Feb. 27, the judges will select a winning team that will go on to compete in the national competition. Last year, the O’rourke Middle School team placed fourth in the national competition.
“I cannot wait to see what the next 20 years hold for all the students participating this year,” Bertok said. “If you can succeed this year, there is no doubt in my mind that you can accomplish anything.”