Joshua Fischlin | Telegraph-Journal
January 25, 2020
ROTHESAY • Three Rothesay Netherwood School (RNS) students captured top spot in a city planning competition with their conceptualized carbon neutral, water recycling model, earning them the chance to compete in an international competition next month.
The Future City competition was held on Jan. 18 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, judging students on how to best make the world a better place.
Specifically,the contest asked them to conceptualize and build a model for a future sustainable city, 100 years down the line, said RNS teacher Mary-Ellen Wilcox. This year's theme, "Clean Water: tap into tomorrow," revolved around clean and drinkable water.
"I think, for us in Grade 7, the takeaway is, one, to look at the world beyond themselves and into the future, and two, the teamwork – that’s really important – that comes along with this," said Wilcox, who first got the school involved in the competition three years ago.
Though the entire Grade 7 science class took part in an initial internal competition, only two teams were picked to head to the regionals: Team Nero and Team Bevetia. It was the latter that took first place, while the former took the people's choice award.
The winning group consisted of Grade 7 students, Myah Hassan, Ellen Wilbur, and Oasis
Guimond.
Their project involved the creation of the future city, Bevetia, which is based in current-day
Venice.
Wilbur said they chose Venice as the city to upgrade because of its canal system. Fewer cars means less carbon emission, she explained. They also placed plants on the top of buildings, to further filter the air.
All the power in their city, explained Hassan, comes from a wind and solar plant on the outskirts of the city.
"The water, the plants – it’s a lot of carbon neutrality. We wanted to have zero carbon emissions. That was one of our main points in the project," Wilbur said.
They also designed their conceptualized Bevetia to filter ocean water into drinking water.