In Term Three we had the pleasure of working with 27 amazing students from 5 schools as part of the Gladstone Future Cities Challenge delivered with Central Queensland University STEM Central and Australia Pacific LNG. Open to students in Grades 5-8 in Central Queensland, this competition was designed to get students applying their STEM skills to real world scenarios as they had their say of what their city should look like.
The challenge kicked off at the start of the term with a 'Hackathon Day' designed to get students thinking big about the future of their city. Hosted at the STEM Central space at Central Queensland University, students came from across the region for one action packed day of ideation and application.
We started the day by looking at some of the exciting new technologies being used in cities around the world. While we researched we discussed what we thought about these new technologies and some of the good, and the bad effects they could have on the community.
From there we dived straight into the challenge as team developed their vision, mission and key priorities for their city design, and identified areas of opportunity that they wanted to focus on when developing their solution.
After the hackathon day, students went back to their schools and joined our team for an hour a week on Zoom for a virtual masterclass to help with their solution development. Each week our team worked with students to focus on a different element of their solution, before finally getting ready to pitch the finished products.
Students finished the program by delivering a 3-minute video pitch aimed at the local council on what these students think the city should look like in 2050. These entries were then judged with feedback provided, and the students came back together for an awards celebration.
To find out more about how you could organise Future City programs with your school community, head to our Incursions Page to browse programs. If you're interested in organising a competition, or multi-school engagement Contact Us as we'd love to chat further.