Fifth graders as futurists: Imagining the world in 20 years

One student envisions a watch that tells you when you’re polluting – a sort of eco-nanny on your wrist. 

Another suggests that teachers might show up in classrooms, not in person, but as holograms. 

There’s talk of colonies on Mars, and people commuting in flying cars. 

These are among the ideas to emerge from the fertile imaginations of fifth graders across the country thinking about what the world will – or should – look like in 20 years. As the calendar flips to a new year, the Monitor, in collaboration with The Hechinger Report – a nonprofit education news site – had reporters sit down with students in four cities to give us their predictions of and aspirations for the future. 

At a time of unusual vitriol in society among grown-ups – on abortion, school curricula, election counts, you name it – we wanted to plumb the minds of youth who are becoming aware of the world but still retain an innocence. 

What we found is that they harbor plenty of concerns about tomorrow, sure, but they also exude an innate optimism, a sense of delight and possibility. Their visions represent a journey into cybersecurity and space travel, racism and robots. 

As you read through their comments, consider what you think will be happening in 2042 and then ask yourself: Am I smarter than a fifth grader?

A kinder, cleaner world(s)

HILLSBORO, ORE. – One idea, for when we colonize Mars, is that all of humanity could spend a few years on the Red Planet to let Earth “rest.”

“And then when we come back, we’ll try better to not pollute as much,” says Chandler Stark, a fifth grader at Paul L. Patterson Elementary School in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Chandler estimates it will take two to five years for Earth to recover from what