Bismarck Mayor Mike Seminary along with the North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) and Bismarck Public Schools launched a collaborative pilot program called Vision 2030 today. The program engages education, city and state government to work with community leaders along with prospective engineers on the future planning needs within their community. “We are delighted to work together in collaboration with Bismarck Public Schools and NDDOT on ‘Vision 2030’. I’m especially excited about the leadership that Commissioner Shawn Oban has provided in this effort. As Commissioner Oban has expressed, “This project engages our kids, the next generation – with the amazing opportunity to explore what they’d like our future city to look like while using their creative, critical thinking, collaboration and communications skills,” said Mike Seminary, Mayor.
Vision 2030 works with the school system to engage students to be creative and look at their community in new ways which include engineering and planning perspectives with a goal of education and community outreach. “We are excited to work in partnership with the city and public school system to get student’s ideas on how they think transportation will play a part in their future community,” says Tom Sorel, NDDOT Director.
The program gives students hands on Project Based Learning (PBL) that they can apply in their careers later on. During their work, the students will put together what their future community might look like by taking the following into consideration:
• Where people live
• Where they shop
• Where people gather
• Services needed
• Transportation
• Utilities
Approximately 250 sixth grade students from Bismarck’s Horizon Middle School are launching the program January 30 at 11:15 a.m., with Bismarck Mayor, city officials, NDDOT Director Tom Sorel and school administrators. The project is approximately 10 weeks long and will include project development with a competition concluding the program in April. Watch for more details and a web page coming soon.