Now in its 28th year, the Future City Competition is a program developed for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students to help them discover and foster interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM). Students work in teams of three and are assisted by a teacher and mentor, generally an engineer or science professional, to: design their city, develop a project plan, test and manage their city inside of SimCity software, build a scale model, write a technical essay and make a presentation to judges at the Regional Competition. The team that wins the NJ Regional Competition receives an all-expense paid trip to the National Competition in Washington, D.C. in February 2020. In the 2018-19 Competition, the NJ Region was represented at the National Finals by the JerseySTEM city “Kaifukuryoku” who would go on to win Third Place Overall!  

This year’s theme, Clean Water: Tap Into Tomorrow, asks students to design a resilient system to maintain a reliable supply of clean water.

The Future City Competition is one of the few outreach activities in New Jersey that brings together the education community, local engineering alumni, businesses, engineering firms and various professional societies. The NJ Region Steering Committee, teachers and mentors are committed to showing students that mathematics, science and engineering can be fun. In recent years, the NJ Regional Competition has grown to over 500 participating students, with feedback from both students and teachers being exceedingly positive, providing exclamations of this being an excellent STEAM experience!