Commissioner K. Steele and Future City Competition

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This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the Future City Competition and preparations are underway for the 2017 Future City Competition on Saturday January 7, 2017.  The competition needs judges for both the Remote Essay & Computer Model Judging and the Competition Preliminary Judging.

Volunteers sign up to help judge either or both activities.  Please feel free to contact me with any question about the Future City Competition or volunteering opportunities.  All judges will need to register online on the Future City Website.

For 2017 the “Pre-Judging” will done remotely.  Essays and computer models (along with a free copy of SimCity) will be emailed to volunteer judges in the weeks before the competition.  Judges can score the essays and computer models at their leisure and return them by deadline.  We expect to send out essays and computer models for judging in early December 2016.

The competition date is again early in January 2017.  The Chicago Region Future City Competition will be held on Saturday January 7th, 2017 on the UIC Campus at the Student Center West Facility on Wolcott Ave.  There the presentations and physical models will be judged.

This year’s theme is the “The Power of Public Spaces”, and challenges teams to design a network of innovative, multi-use public spaces throughout their city that serves their city’s diverse population.

For those not familiar with program, The Future City Competition is a national, project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades imagine, design, and build cities of the future. Students work as a team with an educator and engineer mentor to plan cities using SimCity™ software; research and write solutions to an engineering problem; build tabletop scale models with recycled materials; and present their ideas before judges at Regional Competitions in January. Regional winners represent their region at the National Finals during Engineer’s Week in Washington, DC in February.

Please feel free to pass this on to any friends and co-workers that may be interested and have them contact me with any questions. Additional info can be found on the national website at www.futurecity.org or the Chicago region website at futurecity.org/illinois-chicago or http://futurecity.org/region/chicago-regional-volunteer-opportunities

Commissioners honored for efforts to improve water quality

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Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) President Mariyana Spyropoulos, Vice President Barbara McGowan and Commissioners Josina Morita, Debra Shore, and Kari K. Steele were honored by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Freshwater Lab on May 10 at a reception held at the Shedd Aquarium. The reception was a highlight of a two-day summit called “Untrouble the Waters” that was dedicated to bringing mayors, local leaders, and researchers together to envision and launch projects that benefit communities and watersheds.

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