Help your kids take charge of the world they want to create by designing inventions and solutions to challenges faced in the imaginary City X, the first human settlement on another planet.
*2021 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books in Hands-On Science Longlist*
*2021 EUREKA! Nonfiction Children’s Honor Book*
Adventures in Engineering for Kids features:
- 35 hands-on problem-solving, design thinking, and engineering activities
- Flexible and adaptable content for different ages and stages
Design an Irresistible Future
In settling another planet, humans discover a host of challenges, much like those faced on Earth. The Mayor of City X has established an elite engineering team called the Irresistible Futures Agency, charged with tackling major challenges like:
- Energy
- Environment
- Transportation
- Security
- Food
- Safety
- Health
Problem Solving, Design Thinking, and Engineering
As an Irresistible Futures engineer, kids (and adults!) come up with their own unique solutions to big problems. They use design thinking, systems thinking, and other problem-solving activities that are part of being a good engineer for the future. Activities help them:
- Explore the impact of global challenges
- Make complex issues simple and understandable
- Imagine a better future
- Create solutions to the challenges they care most about
- Share their best ideas with the world
Science-Fact and Real-World Case Studies
Along the way, readers learn about real-world innovators and technologies that are making this future possible, from inventors building megastructures in space to companies powering cities with baby poop.
Diversity and Inclusion
In each Chapter, kids design a solution for citizens of City X, who share perspectives on each challenge. The 35 citizens represent a diversity of culture, age, gender, background, and ability, so every reader can see themselves in the story and expand their perspective at the same time.
Without limits, what can kids create?
About the Series:
Design thinking—creative problem solving—will be crucial to resolving the global challenges in business, politics, and the environment facing the next generation. Each book in the Design Genius Jr. series teaches kids this important skill through fun, hands-on projects in a single area of design that challenge them to identify problems, explore possibilities, test ideas, and then come up with original solutions.
Brett Schilke is a globally-recognized expert on the future of learning and the future of work, and is the co-creator of the City X Project, a problem solving, design, and engineering course for kids that's used in over 75 countries and nationwide in China. He is an advisor to multiple education startups, and has designed future-focused curriculum and learning experiences for the United States Congress and the UAE Ministry of Education. Brett also currently leads the Task Force for the Future of Work for the G20 Engagement Group on Youth.
Currently leading a global research lab on future-crafting, and serving on the faculty of Singularity University in Silicon Valley, Brett regularly writes on education and the future of youth on various media properties and averages over 30 global speaking engagements each year. Design Genius Jr. Adventures in Engineering for Kids: 35 Challenges to Design the Future as You Journey to City X is his first book. He lives in Palo Alto, California.
