“Future engineers think up cities” describes how middle school students think up future cities (USA Today, Feb 26, 2007, 8D). In their city design, these teams included such aspects as forms of energy to power the city, transportation, infrastructure plans, protection from natural disasters, communication, water, and police protection. After they designed the city using SimCity, they built a model, wrote an essay and gave a presentation to engineering judges.
The students worked under the guidance of a professional engineer from their community as they developed their city.
In this project students developed higher level thinking skills in Science, Math, Social studies, and English standards-based skills.
Talk about a real world learning experience! They develop a future city based on sound science and engineering principles. They worked with an expert from outside the school who constantly gave them formative feedback. They had their work evaluated by experts outside the school.
So what simulations and real world experiences do you involve your students in? How do you engage students in higher level thinking and multi-disciplinary standards through technology? How can you involve community experts to help guide your students?
© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007
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Education with Technology Harry G. Tuttle 
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