Students investigate how schools can better support wellness, sustainability, safety, AI integration, and community connection, then use the design cycle to create a future-ready school proposal for 2035. They launch with a “Future School Sneak Peek,” study real challenges, interview stakeholders, and test ideas against the question of what features a future-ready school should include. Through design sprints, gallery walk feedback, and critique from a local architect or facilities planner, students revise campus concepts that address environmental impact and practical design constraints. The project builds New York State Portrait of a Graduate competencies by asking students to collaborate, communicate, solve authentic problems, and present their solutions to an authentic audience.

Students will investigate how school design choices affect wellness, safety, sustainability, AI use, and community connection, using stakeholder interviews and local examples to define a strong future-ready campus. They will apply the engineering design cycle to develop, test, and revise a school concept that meets criteria and constraints, including solutions for reducing environmental impact, in alignment with NGSS MS-ESS3-3, 6-8.AF.6.7, ETS.1.B, and ETS.1.C. Students will collaborate in design teams, use feedback from gallery walks and a school architect or facilities planner to improve their ideas, and communicate their final proposal through models, floor plans, and presentations to an authentic audience. Students will also reflect on how their design decisions show New York State Portrait of a Graduate competencies such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, self-direction, and cultural responsiveness.

Students will create empathy interview notes, a school challenge map, and a design brief that identifies criteria and constraints connected to wellness, safety, sustainability, AI use, and community access. During the project, teams will produce annotated floor plans, low- or high-fidelity prototypes, and environmental monitoring ideas that show how their school design reduces human impact, aligned to the engineering design cycle. After each design sprint, they will revise their work using sticky-note feedback from gallery walks and input from a local architect or facilities planner. The final product will be a public design proposal for a School of 2035 that includes a scaled campus model or digital 3D rendering, a sustainability and safety rationale, and a presentation to an authentic audience in the Mid-Hudson Valley.

Kick off with a “Future School Sneak Peek” gallery that immerses students in real school design challenges through photos, short videos, campus maps, and data on energy use, safety, student stress, and community access in Mid-Hudson Valley schools. At curiosity stations, teams explore prompts tied to wellness, sustainability, AI integration, safety, and community connection, then complete a fast design challenge to sketch three must-have features of a 2035 school. Invite a local school architect or facilities planner to react to student ideas, introduce real design constraints, and pose the driving challenge: What features should a future-ready school include to support learning, sustainability, and strong community connections? Close with a brief team share-out and a question wall where students post what they need to investigate before designing their own future-ready campus.

Host a “School of 2035 Design Expo” where teams present scale models, annotated floor plans, and short multimedia pitches answering the essential question for families, peers, school leaders, and a local architect or facilities planner from the Mid-Hudson Valley. Structure the event like a public gallery walk so visitors can leave feedback on safety, wellness, sustainability, AI use, and community connection, and invite students to explain how their designs reflect stakeholder interviews and design revisions from each sprint. Include a review panel with administrators, counselors, facilities staff, and community partners who use a simple rubric tied to the NYS Portrait of a Graduate competencies and the engineering design standards. End with a “community choice” recognition and a student reflection wall where teams share what they would improve next to make their future-ready school more inclusive and environmentally responsible.