Students to tackle health care during Future City competition

Congress and the White House continue to spar over the nation's health care crisis and reform, and now students in several Aiken County middle schools are going to tackle the issue.

They are working on that very assignment for the S.C. Regional Future City competition - scheduled from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 22 at USC Aiken's Business & Education building.

Sponsored by the National Engineers Week Foundation, Future City will have 35 regional events throughout the country. Each regional winning team will get an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the national contest in February.

In 2007, three Paul Knox Middle School seventh-graders - Sydney Scaggs, Julie Mundy and Logan Smith - took first place to qualify for the nationals.

Two years later the North Augusta Middle School team of Sarah Larabee, Kirstyn Denney and Julia Spieker also captured the regional event.

The theme and project this year is "providing a reliable and effective health care product or system that improves a sick, injured or disabled patient's quality of life and comfort."

Students will use SimCity 4 Deluxe software to create both virtual and physical models of a future city and write an essay - all components that are intended to explain and demonstrate their ideas.

The three finalists will also will make public presentations to judges and answer their questions about the project.

The participating Aiken County schools include Adelphi Christian Academy, Aiken Area Home Educators, Aiken Middle School, Kennedy Middle School, LBC Middle School, New Ellenton Middle School, North Augusta Middle School and Paul Knox Middle School.

Susan McCullough, the Aiken Middle School coach, said schools need to prepare students more for real-life situations.

A science classroom where kids can work in labs and projects is a good venue for such efforts.

Future City also provides cooperation and learning on a much higher scale, McCullough said.

"The biomedical aspect of the essay portion was illuminating to myself and my students as we investigated new innovations in the current medical fields, as well as researching the future of medical advancements," she said via e-mail. "Both of my competing teams focused their attention to cancer prevention and cures in innovative ways."

The state regional event is sponsored by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, USCA and the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center.

"Health care is one of our country's most important hot-button issues right now," said Kimberly Mitchell, the S.C. Regional coordinator for SRNS, in a press release. "This year's challenge should attract even more attention than usual, as we are asking our students to tackle critical issues that our national leaders are grappling with, as well."

Now a high school senior, Brittany Barwick participated in Future City while at A.L. Corbett Middle School. That experience helped her realize the value of math and science.

"Our group enjoyed the creativity and ingenuity needed to successfully compete," Barwick said in the press release. "It was challenging, a lot of fun, and our city won the Student Choice Award that year."

Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.