Sept. 6, 2011 – (Toronto, Ontario) – After receiving rave reviews from hundreds of participating Canadian teachers and students, the WHERE Challenge is back for its fourth year! The national contest is endorsed by the Canadian Earth sciences community and led by Mining Matters. The Challenge is designed to ultimately attract young people to the field of Earth sciences. As many of you know, both the Mining Industry Human Resources Council and Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada are predicting a crippling shortage of talent in the coming years. It’s forecasted that tens of thousands of workers will be needed to fill jobs in specialties including geology, engineering, environmental sciences, technology and skilled trades over the next 10 years.
Given this scenario, WHERE Challenge organizers believe the Challenge is more important than ever. Thanks to your support, dozens of school classrooms and more than a thousand students have participated in the Challenge so far. Organizers are asking for your help again this year, appealing to industry partners like yourself to promote the contest through your network of contacts, as well as consider sponsorship of the Challenge. All these efforts go towards attracting the next generation of Earth scientists.
"The WHERE Challenge excites kids about learning, and that’s what we want to see," said Laura Clinton, manager, financial affairs and fund development at Mining Matters. "Education is the only way to build long-term awareness and appreciation of our planet, as well as knowledge about employment opportunities in the mining, energy and environmental sectors."
The WHERE Challenge asks students aged 9 – 14 years to discover the answers to these questions: What on Earth is in your stuff and WHERE on Earth does it come from? The Challenge launches today and runs until March 1, 2012, with $10,000 in prize money up for grabs. Students are encouraged to use their imagination and create an educational story about non-renewable Earth resources found in an everyday item. Winners will be announced May 8, 2012.
Teachers whose classrooms have participated in past WHERE Challenges say the contest offers students, teachers and even parents something unique – an engaging project that’s as entertaining as it is educational.
"I believe my students’ ideas about the world we live in changed as a result of participating in this contest," said Suzanne Wernli-Roy, a B.C. elementary school teacher whose grade 5/6/7 class won close to $1,000 in last year’s WHERE Challenge by making a video following a visit to an aluminum smelter in Kitimat. "Even if we hadn’t won a prize, we still would have won. We came out of the adventure with a better understanding of the world, the marvels of industry and the challenges up ahead."
Mining Matters is a charitable organization, established in 1997, that works to educate students about Canada’s geology and mineral resource endowment and promote an awareness of the importance of rocks, metals, minerals and mining. The organization gives young people the chance to learn hands-on about the mineral industry in a fun and educational way.
For more details, please visit www.earthsciencescanada.com/where