CHICAGO (January 28, 2004) – A team of five eighth-grade students from St. Barnabas Catholic School in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood have won first place in the 2004 Regional Future City Competition. The winning creation, “Lewis & Clark, the City of Discovery,” a proposed community on the planet Mars 200 years in the future, won St. Barnabas a berth in the national finals competition in Washington, D.C., next month. The competition is sponsored by the National Engineers Week Committee of the National Society of Professional Engineers. It is the second time the south side Catholic elementary school has won the regional title.
St. Barnabas claimed the national title in 2001.

The student team, composed of three presenters, Clair Bowens, 13, Robert Caruso, 14, and Meg Hlousek, 13; and two alternate presenters, Christopher Davis and Kevin Mallon, both 13; were guided by licensed professional engineer Tim Cullina, who has served as the school’s volunteer engineer mentor for the competition since 1991. Cullina has more than 20 years engineering management experience in private industry, government and the military. All students and their mentor are residents of the Beverly neighborhood on the city’s southwest side.

The team chose to name the project after 19th century explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to commemorate the 200th anniversary this year of the launch of their U.S. Western frontier expedition, another journey of discovery. Set in the year 2204, the Mars city also celebrates the 200th anniversary of NASA’s current exploration of the red planet by rovers Opportunity and Spirit. An elaborate, colorful, three-dimensional tabletop model of the city features 19 separate enclosed habitats – each built above and below the planet’s surface – for residential, commercial and industrial use.

“As a former regional and past national winner of the Future City Competition, St. Barnabas School underscores the strength and scope of science programs throughout Archdiocese of Chicago schools,” said superintendent Nicholas Wolsonovich, Ph.D. “The five students who participated in this winning project are a wonderful reflection of the excellent academic foundation that Catholic schools provide. The timing of the school’s victory in this competition enhances the pride we have in all our students as we celebrate National Catholic Schools Week.” (Note to Editors: National Catholic Schools Week is sponsored annually by the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA). This year’s celebration, January 25-31, marks the 100th anniversary of
NCEA’s founding.)

In addition to winning first place, the team also took top honors in five categories at the regional competition: best transportation system; most innovative structure; best overall essay; best computer city design; and best overall verbal presentation.

“By the time I worked with the Future City students, they were very well prepared in basic science and eager and ready to reach out and learn new scientific concepts,” said Cullina, who has served as a Future City Competition mentor for St. Barnabas since 2001. “I credit the school’s upper grade science teachers, Janice Louis and Roberta Gerk for their programs.” Louis teaches grades 5-6; Gerk teaches grades 7-8.
- 2 -

During the project, which began last September, the team created and designed the city using SimCity 3000 software; wrote an abstract and an essay about the futuristic city; created a three-dimensional model and visual aids illustrating their computer design. They also wrote and delivered a three-person oral presentation to a volunteer panel of engineering judges during the regional competition Saturday, January 24, 2004, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The assigned theme for this year’s competition focused on how plastics can benefit senior citizens in the future.

SimCity is educational and entertainment software that enables users to plan and simulate the operation of a virtual city. In SimCity, students learn rules that are based on city planning and management principles; resource management, factors influencing land value, human factors, strategies for dealing with disasters, unemployment, crime and pollution, and the quality of life in a city.

In addition to conceiving and creating a model of a city of the future, student presenters also were required to demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of scientific disciplines related to their project and to communicate that knowledge convincingly to a panel of independent judges.

“To overcome the challenges of a hostile new world and build a great city, our citizens have engineered new solutions in the fields of transportation, materials engineering and power generation,” said Caruso during the presentation to judges.

The solutions include enclosed bicycle “breezeways” connecting all habitats. The breezeways feature a steady 32-kilometer-per-hour wind in the direction of bicycle traffic to eliminate drag and push cyclists along. Also part of the team’s elaborate city planning is efficient public transportation built on a lightweight rail system that connects every residential neighborhood with every commercial and industrial area as well as with stopping points for outdoor recreation and exploration. The system’s tracks are made of conductive coils to float small, magnetic cars virtually anywhere in the Martian city. Other solutions include energy advances such as power using Helium-3 – a natural resource on Mars that can be extracted from the red planet’s surface.

National Engineers Week, founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers, is dedicated to increasing public awareness and appreciation of the engineering profession and technology and is celebrated by thousands of engineers, engineering students, teachers and leaders in government and business. Co-chairs for 2004 are The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE/IEEE-USA) and the Fluor Corporation.

Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Schools
The Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Chicago play a critical role in the life of the community by providing academic excellence and faith formation for approximately 111,000 students of many races, faiths and backgrounds in the 283 elementary and secondary schools in Cook and Lake counties. There are more than 5,800 teachers in the Catholic school system who instill values, teach discipline and achieve strong, consistent academic results in the Archdiocese of Chicago's 242 elementary and 41 secondary schools. Visit the Archdiocese of Chicago Web site at www.archchicago.org/schools.