DISCUSSION
Although the education system continues to focus
on standards and academics, most teachers would
agree that to succeed in modern economy and modern
life, their students must master what has been
termed 21st century skills. Those 21st century skills
and knowledge include: creativity, innovation, critical
thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration,
personal responsibility, global awareness, social/
intercultural skills, team learning, as well as mastery
of rigorous academic content. However, teachers often
struggle with integrating these skills into K–12 curricula.
In this article, we describe a safe and constructivistbased
activity called Race to the Future in which 21st
century skills are successfully and seamlessly infused
into existing curricula as a normal course activity. In
Race to the Future, students work creatively and cooperatively
with their teammates to successfully solve
problems presented to them as five clues related to science
content. In the first clue, each group of students
receives an envelope with a CD that, once inserted into
a laptop or computer, plays a QuickTime movie with a
message created with international code flags. The first
clue is intended to build team camaraderie that will
prove essential for the completion of the entire activity
(see Figure 6). The message is kept simple, and the
students typically solve this clue within 10 min, especially
with the aid of the code flag sheet included in
the goody bag. Clue #2, the transparency that spells
“Stellar,” is perhaps the most challenging (and lengthy)
clue of the whole activity. Students need to properly
align the transparency over the letter grid to get the
answer. Some groups, depending on their ages, may