SCHOOLS: How Can We Make the World a Better Place?

On January 20, 2026, 18 Allen Park Public Schools students in Garrett Filkins’ Introduction to Engineering Design Process class traveled to Novi to compete in the Future Cities competition. They returned with four awards, including "The Incorporation of Plastic Materials Award”, "Urban Farming Design Award", "The People's Choice Award" and "Most Team Spirit Award."

The Allen Park students worked hard for a month, with the help of Filkins and fellow AP teacher Robyn Loselle, to go through the engineering-design process to create a city of the future that focuses on eliminating food waste. Students then presented their ideas and models to a panel of judges at the event in Novi.

“This was an awesome experience for everyone involved and the students' hard work definitely paid off,” said Filkins, who teaches a high-school-level engineering and design processes course, as well as middle school robotics.

Future City is a national hands-on, cross-curricular educational program that brings STEM to life for students in grades six through 12. Using the Engineering Design Process (EDP) and project management skills, students showcase their solutions to a citywide sustainability issue. This year’s challenge asked students to design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table and keeps citizens healthy and safe.

The EDP model begins with identifying the problem and learning the specifications before brainstorming solutions and then designing the plan. It concludes with testing, improving and redesigning before building and sharing the project.

This is only Allen Park’s second year with the Future Cities program, which has been led by Filkins both years. This year, Allen Park had five teams across 18 students taking part in Future Cities.

“This starts in the high-school-level engineering class our eighth-grade students can take, and it turns into a club that meets two-to-three times a week after school,” Filkins said.

Loselle, who teaches seventh-grade science and has been at Allen Park Middle School for five years, was specifically requested by the students last year to help with the program, and has been part of the project both years.

The teachers have observed the students learning and practicing a number of important skills including:
- Applying math and science to current real-world scenarios, issues and policies
- Discovering all the unique and different branches they could pursue in engineering
- Learning to communicate and collaborate as a team to work through disagreements and meet specific deadlines
- Presenting in front of a panel of judges, and then answering on-the-spot questions from engineering professionals in different fields

The middle school Future Cities program starts with a simple question: How can we make the world a better place? The students then set out trying to answer the question.

Here are a few answers from Allen Park students:

“Future Cities helped boost my creativity,” said Olivia S.

"It helped me to problem solve...And wish I could do it all over again,” said Francesco J.

"I gained a lot of knowledge, and the experience opened my eyes to possible future careers and industries,” said Daniel B.

For more information on the Future Cities program, visit futurecity.org/what-is-future-city.