Contest organizers hope to attract thousands of entries

(CALGARY, AB) – A national contest for kids sparked by an urgent need to attract young people to the Earth sciences is announcing it will go ahead for a second year. Dozens of school classrooms and more than a thousand students participated in the first year of the WHERE Challenge – a contest launched last October that asked Canadian students aged 10 – 14 years to discover non-renewable Earth resources found in everyday objects. Contest organizers hope to attract at least double that number this year.

"Our sector needs new talent. It's that simple," said John Boyd, Canadian chair of International Year of Planet Earth (2007 – 2009). "We're hoping that this contest puts Earth sciences on young people's radar and that they consider pursuing the science as a career."

Despite the current economic downturn, experts say a crippling labour crunch is looming for the Earth sciences sector. According to several recently released forecasts by organizations like the Petroleum Human Resources Council and the Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences (CFES), a wave of expected retirements and declining student enrollments means a critical gap could start emerging within the next few years.

"We're talking about being short tens of thousands of Earth scientists by 2015," said Ian Young, past president of the CFES. "We’re expecting the needs of the environmental sector alone to grow by more than 30 percent over the next five years."

Oil & gas, mining, environmental & geotechnical, government and academia are all predicted to face serious challenges in attracting qualified Earth scientists. Rising commodity demands, advances in technology and emerging issues such as the need for new discoveries, sustainable resource development and an increased focus on environmental geoscience – all have the country facing an alarming shortfall of talent over the next five to 10 years.

"Even with the recession, we are still facing serious shortages," said Young. "It's absolutely essential that we develop new strategies to recruit and train people from every possible demographic."

The WHERE Challenge is designed to capture the interest of that youngest demographic and offers almost $17,000 in prize money. The Challenge is sponsored by EnCana Corporation and supported by the national Earth Sciences community. For more information, please visit www.earthsciencescanada.com/where.

- 30 -

For more information, please contact:

Jennifer Lyall
Email: lyalljennifer@shaw.ca
Phone: (403) 818-8984