Lincoln Park earns ‘Most Innovative Design’ in Regional Future City Competition

A team of seventh and eighth graders at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School earned “most innovative design of infrastructure systems” for their futuristic city in the Pittsburgh Regional Future City Competition.

A dozen students on the 16-person team attended the Jan. 19 competition at the Carnegie Science Center, where they presented judges their final project. Future City is a nationwide, project-based, learning competition in which middle school students design and build innovative cities.

Science teacher and advisor Jessica Ezop said the challenge this year was to design a resilient, clean-drinking water supply of for a city that exists at least 100 years in the future.

“Our students designed a city that can adapt to a rapidly increasing population,” Ezop said.

The city included a plant-based water filtration system and underground storage that collects water from rain barrels throughout the city. Students even designed heated sidewalks that melt the snow and collect rainwater.

Seventh graders Maria Rossi-Keen and Emma McCollim focused on a three-level water treatment plant. On one level, plants filtered water and a lab tested for lead and pH levels on the level below it. Offices and research space took up the top level.

McCollim, who focused on heated sidewalks, described indents in the sidewalk that allowed snow to fill up and drain water into small holdings. The water filtered into aquifers, as well as pipes, causing a turbine to spin and produce electricity.

“The process happens all over again. It’s just a big process,” McCollim said.

Water flows also filtered into a personal aquifer, community aquifer, and city aquifer.

“We have a dam and if the dam overflows, then we have a reservoir behind the dam,” Rossi-Keen said.

Students started the project at the beginning of the school year and the class lasted one semester. This was the second year the team participated. Last year, students won awards for “Outstanding First Year Team” and “Best Land Surveying Practices.”