National Engineering Week Ready for Launch

CCPE National Engineering
Week website

Engineers are Alberta's problem solvers, the practical inventors who use science and technology to turn ideas into reality, providing us with the research, innovation, and technological achievements that help make our lives easier, healthier, more productive and fun.

Every day we benefit from their work.  This year's theme for National Engineering Week (Feb.26 - March 6), "It's All Around Us",  recognizes the significant contributions made by engineers.  Thanks to them, we can cruise down the local highway paved with information or asphalt, run in the latest sports shoes, flow clean water to our homes, and pump oil and gas from the ground.  In Alberta, geoscientists play an equally important role in the advance of our economy and the well-being of Albertans.  Their contributions will be highlighted during the annual 10-day event.

National Engineering Week is organized by the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (CCPE), the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and provincial engineering and geoscience associations. 

Special events and activities are planned across the country to raise the profile of the engineering profession.  This year's national honorary chair is Micheline Bouchard, P.Eng., a past chair of CCPE and chairman, president and CEO of Motorola Canada.  (See related story page 16).

A special supplement will appearing the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald on Thursday, Feb. 25 high-lighting some of the success stories of Alberta's engineering and geoscience community.  The supplement is supported through advertising revenues provided by numerous companies that employ APEGGA members.  The newspaper feature will reach more than 700,000 households in Alberta.  APEGGA sponsors the Edmonton Science Olympics, being held Saturday Feb. 27 at the Shaw Conference Centre.  More than 500 studentswill compete in an interschool challenge where teams attempt to solve problems and test science principles.

In Calgary, APEGGA supports the Odyssey of the Mind Competition.  This annual event incorporates science, math, and other subjects to challenge students through practical applications of their school curriculum.  It's a provincial competition for students of all ages and the winners earn the right to move on to the international competition in the U.S.

Throughout the province, APEGGA volunteers will be visiting classrooms to talk about engineering and the geosciences, organizing mall displays and working with other science based organizations to promote the professions.  The association also runs advertising in  local papers in support of branch events and activities.  For further information on how you or your company can get involved, contact APEGGA's public relations staff at (780) 426-3990 or 1-800-661-7020 (toll free in Alberta), e-mail: email@apegga.org.