LUMBERTON — Lumberton Junior High School students brought home a prestigious award earned during the NC Future City Competition held recently.
Students from grades 6-8 who are part of the school’s Technology Club brought home the Ethics in Engineering Award. The award was announced during a virtual presentation due to weather conditions.
Students had to submit recordings along with essays and other components due throughout the semester that related to the project, according to Phyllis King, a Career and Technical Education teacher at LJHS and Technology Club adviser.
The competition is described as “a hands-on cross-curricular educational program that brings STEM to life for students in grades 6 through 8,” according to Future City’s website. Students use the Design Process (EDP) to solve problems within their future cities.
“The competition is not one day. It's a semester with the last day or final being the model and the presentation,” she said.
This year’s competition included the “Farm to Table Challenge” requiring that students create a city that eliminates food waste in a sustainable and healthy way.
The students’ project “Urbs Futurum” is a visionary, self-sustaining city of 800,000 residents envisioned for Puerto Rico in the year 2178, designed around a circular economy that produces its own food, energy, and resources. Through renewable energy, vertical farming, advanced water purification, and waste-to-energy systems, the city eliminates landfill waste, reduces food imports, and powers its infrastructure sustainably. By combining “living architecture,” artificial intelligence–supported services, and green-economy job creation, Urbs Futurum serves as a forward-thinking model for resilient, environmentally responsible cities of the future.
“As always, I am very proud of my students and what they're able to do when given a challenge. The Ethics in Engineering Award is very encouraging because we live in a time where people are developing products and technologies that do not consider the harm that may come to a community or a group of people as a result of their designs” she added.
PSRC Superintendent Dr. Freddie Williamson shared congratulatory remarks for the team’s recognition and their participation in the competition.
“We are very proud of our students’ achievement at the state level,” Dr. Williamson said.
“On behalf of the Public Schools of Robeson County, I would like to congratulate these students, Ms. King, and Principal Watson on a job well done. I also want to encourage our students to keep dreaming, creating and innovating. The solutions to many of today’s problems will be solved by our leaders of tomorrow, our students,” Dr. Williamson added.