In addition to the three-year STEM coursework, Grandview Middle School students have the opportunity to expand their STEM learning with two elective courses: Future Cities and Future Problem Solvers.

Future Problem Solvers is an elective in grade 6 that teaches students how to think, not what to think. Through a six-step process, students learn critical and creative thinking and problem solving and decision making skills. Developing these skills helps students to improve their academic and social achievement.

Other benefits to FPS:

• Encourages students to improve their critical, creative & analytical thinking skills
• Stimulates students’ knowledge & interest in the future
• Extends written & verbal communication
• Develops & improves research proficiency
• Provides opportunities to apply process tools & methods to solve real world problems

The Future Cities competition in grade 7 brings science, technology, engineering and math alive. Students work in teams with a professional engineer mentor to design a city that is 150 years in the future. As part of the competition students will research an engineering problem, write an essay on their solution, build a tabletop scale model of their city, and present their project to a panel of judges.

Skills to be mastered:

• Design a future city using SimCity 5 Deluxe software
• Research a specific engineering problem & write an essay on the solution using Google Document
• Write, rehearse & present a speech on the project to a panel of judges
• Design a tabletop scale model of the city using recycled materials