K–12 Outreach
Outreach events are an important aspect of APEGA’s participation in the communities we serve, and they are met every year with excitement and high energy from both participants and volunteers. In 2024, 816 volunteers, most of them APEGA registrants, supported our K–12 outreach events. These volunteers offer young learners a taste of engineering and geoscience careers, and their real-world perspectives enrich what kids are learning in school. Our two main annual events for young Albertans are the APEGA Science Olympics and the Rock and Fossil Clinic, both designed to foster curiosity and ignite learning in the next generation of professionals.
Rock and Fossil Clinic In October, nearly 350 people attended the Rock and Fossil Clinic at the University of Alberta for an interactive introduction to geoscience. Guests were invited to bring samples for identification, experiment with building aquifers, and tour the university’s mineralogy and paleontology museums and geophysics labs.
Science Olympics The Science Olympics welcomed 2,081 competitors in grades 1–12 to venues in Edmonton, Calgary, and five other branch locations across the province—a record turnout. • A highlight of the event was the autonomous fruit-picker challenge. For this challenge, high school students were given three months to design and create a robotic or hydraulic prototype that could grip or lift apples and transport them to a drop-off location without any slippage. • Students also collaborated to solve at least one timed, live surprise challenge with limited materials. • The scoring matrixes for all challenges were designed to encourage growth and skill development.
New for 2024 The University of Alberta organized and led tours of its Geoscience Garden, an outdoor classroom where visitors walk among and inspect rocks representing natural outcrops from across Central and Western Canada.
See students’ excitement for learning in our four-minute video of Science Olympics highlights. Watch the video at apega.ca/science-olympics .
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2024 ANNUAL REPORT
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