SANDPOINT — This year’s Future City theme is “Clean Water: Tap Into Tomorrow,” and what better place to get some hands-on experience in that subject than North Idaho.

Northside Elementary fifth-graders, while they are too young to compete in the regional or state Future City competition, took on the challenge and after working on their projects since September, recently held a classroom competition.

“The kids learned so much from this competition about engineering and design, and how a city operates,” said Jeanne Warwick, a fifth-grade teacher at Northside.

Despite not being able to officially compete, the fifth-grade students went all in and did everything they would have needed to do to compete at the state level. They were required to write an essay, design a virtual city online through Sim City, build a model to scale, and create a script for their presentation to the judges.

The students went on several field trips, including an eagle cruise in Coeur d’Alene and a collaborative water-quality testing effort on the Pack River with Clark Fork High School students. The program covers nine of the science standards Warwick said she is required to cover throughout the year, as well as two writing standards and some technology standards.

“So it is a well-rounded program that hits all different learning styles,” Warwick said, adding that one student may be good at writing an essay, while another is good at designing the back board. “That’s what makes this really neat — that all of the different kinds of learners can participate and feel successful in this ... I am very thankful that Northside let me do this and the Lake Pend Oreille School District let me do this.”

Warwick said she would also like to thank retire Northside staff Nancy Rinaldi and Jayne Sturm, Lisa Ailport from the city of Bonners Ferry, and Erik Brubaker and Kayliegh Miller from the city of Ponderay, who served as the judges for the classroom competition.

The winners of the classroom competition were Lilly Knepper, Addison Day, Jaylah Butler, Tayslie Otto and Lexi Rief for their city of Aquarius. Warwick said the judges scored them the most points for their organization, they knew what their city was all about and worked “very well” together as a group. The Future City project was completely grant funded, including a grant was from the National Education Association, Warwick said.

According to the Future City website, the competition is one of the nation’s leading engineering education programs and has received national recognition and acclaim for its role in encouraging middle schoolers to develop their interest in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math. The flexible, cross-curricular educational program gives students an opportunity to do the things that engineers do, such as identify problems, brainstorm ideas, design solutions, test, retest and build, and share their results. The process is called the engineering design process and, with that at its center, Future City is an “engaging way to build students’ 21st century skills,” according to the website.

Warwick is no stranger to Future City as her previous sixth-grade classes at Washington Elementary had competed at the state level. Warwick has also set up a club outside of school that is made up of middle school students who meet at Selle Valley Carden School. Because that team is sixth, seventh and eighth graders, they will be competing at the regional competition in January.

“I am hoping next year when these guys are sixth graders they will want to join the club,” she said.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.