First-Place Sayville Middle School STEM Team Propelled to Nationals

Sayville Middle School Technology teacher Jeffrey Goodman and Science teacher Lindsey Loscalzo, who oversee the Middle School’s STEM program, had great news about the recent The Future City Competition, the non-profit competition sponsored by the engineering community to promote technological literacy and engineering to middle school students.

Sayville Middle School STEM students “have been competing in the Future City Competition for many years,” but this year “all their hard work paid off,” Mrs. Loscalzo shared.  “We have always been honored by being recognized with a special area award.  We have even placed before, but this year's team did something that we have never achieved before. It won First Place for the region and was invited to compete at the National level in the next round.”

This year's theme: A Waste-Free Future! required STEM teams to use the three principles of a circular economy to design a futuristic, waste-free city. “If you are unfamiliar with the term ‘circular economy,’” Mr. Goodman explained, “it is when products, goods, and materials are created in a way that they never end up in a dump or landfill. The goal of a circular economy is to continuously reuse and repurpose waste so that it becomes fuel or material and continues to be useful.”

For the competition, the STEM team had to complete both a project plan to help them organize their project and then build a physical model of their future city (to scale) using recycled materials. “This year's team incorporated the circular-economy principle into every aspect of the city’s design that represented Sayville in the year 2122,” Mr. Goodman said.  "Mrs. Loscalzo introduced the concept of lab-grown meat, a process that more efficiently uses water, land, and produces zero waste. The team liked this concept and incorporated it into their future city.” Mr. Goodman noted that he “got the team thinking about creating a future where products were made with recycling as the end goal. Sustainable building materials were also key to the success of the future city.”

To learn how to build such a city, the entire STEM class demonstrated excellent teamwork in researching “how city services are done differently in different parts of the world,” Mr. Goodman continued. “They included a pneumatic waste collection system that ran underground and whisked trash off to be recycled or composted. They included futuristic transportation solutions like automated self-driving cars for local use and a hyperloop to connect long distances. They also invented new methods of producing solar energy and looked to our local geography to create tidal energy from our shorefront.”

Not only had Sayville’s Middle School STEM team created a detailed model city to illustrate their ideas, they made “a presentation and video to explain how life would be different in the future," Mrs. Loscalzo recounted, adding that the STEM students "even went through a question-and-answer session with real engineers to explain their vision of the future. I hope the students are as proud of their work as Mr. Goodman and I are of them!”

Sayville Middle School Principal Dr. Joseph Castoro was happy and proud with the Middle School STEM students’ First Place finish in this year’s regional Future City Competition! “These innovative and creative problem solvers have earned the right to enter into the national competition. We are so very proud of all of the students, and their teachers, Mr. Goodman and Mrs. Loscalzo, for their hard work and dedication.”

Although it has been determined that the Nationals will take place online again this year, the Sayville Middle STEM team is ready to go virtual. “It’s still super exciting,” Mr. Goodman added.

Photo above. Entire Middle School STEM Class (for names see the pdf of the class roster)

Photo below -students representing the Sayville Middle School STEM team to the judges (L to R); Meghan Vahle, Mackenzie Schutte, Carly Cangelosi, and Julia Sack.