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...