The future is here. It is the form of middle schoolers.

The Veritas Homeschoolers of Arizona traveled to Washington this week, as they competed in the 25th annual Future City Competition. The objective of this competition is to challenge middle schoolers to design a city in the future that has the answers to problems plaguing the world today.

Six students spent months working together to face the problem of cleaning a petrochemical site laden with pollution in Quito, Ecuador. The middle schoolers won a regional competition in January to advance to a round of auditions. The six students then partook in three auditions and won the rights to compete in Washington.

Facing the task at hand in fixing the problems that face the Ecuadorian site, the students weighed the benefits, as well as well as the risks, of revamping the city of Quito. Implementing microbial degradation as well as phytoremediation, they concocted a plan for a cleaner, safer city 100 years in the future. They named the project, “Repurposing to Revitalize: Changing Quito to ReviviQuito.”

In the blueprints, the students converted all of the roadways to pedestrian and bike pathways. They also abandoned the use of fuel, opting for a city that prospers through the use of renewable energy. The students reasoned that with the discontinuation of petrochemicals, the groundwater would cease contamination. Their project cited that with, “microbial degradation to break down the petroleum into carbon dioxide and sugars. Phytoremediation plants cleaned polluted groundwater by biodegrading hydrocarbons.”

The six students were teamed up with an engineering mentor when they got to Washington who oversaw their plans to ensure they were executable. Otherwise, all creativity was left up to the kids, who could not spend more than $100 on their project model. The students will be presenting their plan to judges this week. The top five projects will advance to the finals where the finalists will present their ideas to the entire group of competitors. The winners of Future City Competition will get an all-expenses-paid trip to Space Camp as well as $7,500 from Bentley Systems, Inc.