[Teacher voiceover]

This is an eighth grade environmental inquiry class that is participating in the Future Cities Competition project. they’re working in groups of two or three, and what they are trying to accomplish is to use the SimCity software to design a futuristic city that has the lowest commute time possible, high tech industry, the lowest amount of water pollution, and the lowest amount of air pollution while still providing enough food and enough water and enough electricity for all of its residents.

What they’re doing now is they’re actually finishing their SimCity projects. What you’ve witnessed is that they’re trying to reduce the air pollution and water pollution, and still stay above their budget.

The next step is that they’ll be creating a physical model and then a presentation to provide to the panel of judges for the future city competition. For that competition we’re going to videotape their presentations so that they’ll be able to go through and critique themselves and improve upon their presentations, so that it’s perfectly how they expect it to be when they give it to the judges at the competition.

Utilizing this technology and the SimCity software has been unbelievably rewarding for the students. Getting to see all the intricacies of a city and everything that goes into making it wouldn’t have been possible if we hand’t had this software to work with. Creating these models that you would otherwise not be able to show to the students has just been astounding, and I think the rewards will be shown as the year progresses.