ASAP Teacher Highlight - Jackie Nichols

Nichols’ Future City STEM Program provided students with the opportunity to solve relevant, real-world community issues while developing their authentic voices for advocacy and change. The students were tasked with working in three member teams to imagine, research, design, and create sustainable cities of the future whilst utilizing the Engineering Design Process.

These cities were set 100 years into the future, and students designed sustainable systems and infrastructure to adapt to climate change and mitigate its impact. During their participation in the program students developed collaboration, engineering design, and presentation skills, as they developed their authentic voice for change and action on issues of sustainability in their community and the world.
 

Teacher Name: Jackie Nichols
School: Lauffer Middle School
District: Sunnyside Unified
Grade Level: 6th-8th Grade
Subject Area: Engineering & STEM Courses
Number of Students Involved: 200
Name of Project: Future City Design & The Climate Change Challenge

Nichols’ program grew so quickly that it became featured in both a column of Sunnyside District’s Community Share, along with a video interview of Nichols focused on the project featured at a local STEM Under Conference!

The full interview can be found at the following link! https://youtu.be/o7oY2x0N6PU

In addition to designing their cities, these student teams also competed in the Kidstruction, Future City Arizona Regional Competition, KIDSBuild, and SARSEF competitions during this school year! The Future City Program helped extend learning beyond just the four walls of the classroom by engaging community mentors, guest speakers, and volunteers in the work of the students, who are on track to become our future engineers, community problem-solvers, and designers. 

The program even became so notable after 87 students enrolled in the STEM classes offered that 12 high school STEM mentors also partook, along with additional students enrolling from the middle school! To top it all off Lauffer hosted a festival at the end of the year in which students could showcase their hard work, and the high school mentors were invited to be opening speakers at Arizona STEM Unconference this year.

The STEM students in this program were recognized by the principals and teachers at the end of the year celebration, and throughout the course of the school year these students were invited into various classrooms to present their 3D Future City Models and share their solutions to climate change solutions and mitigation.

Nichols’ program helped bring the community at Lauffer Middle School together, and has forged a STEM ecosystem there that will hopefully continue on for many years to come!