Future City Competition Finalists Meet the President,
Talk to Astronauts
The National Engineers Week Future City Competition national finals — hosted by Bentley — provides middle school students an experience they won’t soon forget. Traveling to Washington, D.C., having media interviews, and making presentations before judging panels consisting of corporate executives, engineers, architects, and others are pretty exciting stuff to seventh- and eighth-graders — or anyone, for that matter.
Now, add to all of that a trip to the White House to meet President Barack Obama and make a phone call to astronauts orbiting the Earth, and you can imagine the screams of amazement that might come from a group of middle schoolers. This is the incredible opportunity that was tacked onto the finals experience of 12 students from the 2009-2010 Future City finals teams representing Birney Middle School in Detroit; Elkhorn Middle School in Omaha, Neb.; St. Thomas the Apostle in Miami; and Davidson IB Middle School in Davidson, N.C.
The competition organizers had arranged for the students to participate in the President’s conversation with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavour. On Wednesday of this week, the students joined the President in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for his special phone call.
President Obama gave several of the students the opportunity to ask the astronauts questions. For example, Ruth Swallow of the Davidson IB team (which won the national title in this year’s competition) asked, “What are some of the benefits of exploring space as opposed to exploring other places on Earth?”
Once the phone call ended, the students were escorted to the Oval Office for a photo session.
Bentley Systems is the long-time principal sponsor of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition. The company hosts the national finals annually, bringing the winning teams from each of 35 regions to the finals in Washington, D.C., and provides the winners with a grand-prize trip to the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.
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Future City Competition finalists meet the President and talk to astronauts on the International Space Station
Video
Watch the students' White House experience |