EAST LONGMEADOW – Students at Birchland Park Middle School have figured out how to live on the moon… someday. The team of nine middle schoolers took first place at this year’s Future Cities regional competition, which challenges kids to design a city that solves real-world problems. This year’s theme was “Living on the Moon.”

Under the direction of Suzanne Collins, a STEAM teacher at Birchland Park Middle School, the after-school Future Cities Club worked from November 2020 to February on the project. The students – eight sixth graders, for whom this is the first year competing, and one eighth grader – had to learn about engineering, space-related sciences and city planning. Then, they had to imagine how people would live a few hundred years in the future.

“I really loved the idea of it being on the moon,” Collins said.

The kids considered various aspects in building their city, including where to locate it based on available resources, such as sunlight, frozen water and titanium ore. They also looked at where to place schools, recreation, industrial and residential zones within their domed city and how to address transportation, the economy, and feeding residents.

As with everything else, the project was thrown a curveball by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike most years when students get together to build their city model and work on problems, the club was only allowed to meet remotely.

Sixth grader Nicholas Mannheim said it was hard to collaborate and share ideas over Zoom. “We had to hold our drawings to the camera,” he explained.

Eighth grader Cassandra Callahan said, “Some parts we worked on by ourselves, but other parts we worked on together. It was harder virtually, but we could meet as many times as we wanted. One time we met four times [in] a week.”

Collins said, “The kids, I think, were pretty happy to spend time with each other, even if it was only virtual,” Collins noted.

Instead of building one big model, the kids modeled different parts of the city on their own. The students are limited to spending $100 on the model – a restriction that encourages them to use recycled items. Because the club was virtual this year, Collins said that they had to find their own materials, which meant a lot of glue and tape and household items.

“It’s been really fun doing this. My team worked really hard,” said Mannheim, adding that the teamwork was his favorite part. Mannheim said figuring out how to transport as little as possible to the moon while still keeping the city running was hard.

“I really like science. I used to do lots of experiments when I was younger,” he said, adding that the science and architecture were the two most interesting parts of the project. “I think I’m going to stick with architecture,” he said of a possible career.

Callahan, who has participated in Future Cities for three years, said she has thought about working in a STEAM field when she grows up, too. She takes a STEAM class with Collins and said that she wanted to join the club originally because she saw that she could build a model and compete with it.

The regional competition was on Feb. 20. Although 40 teams around New England signed up, only four presented their projects, which included an essay, model, slide show, and video presentation. “It was really hard to just complete everything,” Collins said, since many schools had no way for the students to work together in-person.

The next step is the national Future Cities competition, which will also be virtual. The Birchland Park students and their lunar city will face off against 47 other regions, including some from the Middle East, Canada and China. There will be question and answer periods for the students to demonstrate their knowledge on March 6 and March 13, in advance of the April 7 judging.

The team that wins the national competition will net $5000 for the school’s STEAM program and the kids get to go to U.S. Space Camp for a week. There are also other awards, such as environmental sustainability, best bridge, and most futuristic city, Collins said. Callahan and Mannheim both said the idea of going to space camp sounds “pretty cool.”

Collins said, “They’ve already told me they want to do it again next year.” Mannheim is one of the kids who plan to participate in the competition again. “I’m really hoping that COVID’s over [then], and we can all meet in person,” he said.