Engineers Week sparks interest in young engineers

Engineers Week offers a variety of programs created to generate interest for young students in engineering, science, and technology.

Gust Gianos, CFE Media

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The Nation Engineers Week Foundation’s annual Engineers Week runs February 20-26 this year; led by the Raytheon Company and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). For this year’s E-Week, William H. Swanson of Raytheon Company and Lynn G. Bellenger of ASHRAE have been named Honorary Chair and Chair, respectfully.

The week features a variety of programs geared towards sparking Engineering interest in future generations, with “The Future City” leading the effort.

The Future City Competition is a national competition in the United States that focuses on improving student's math, engineering, and science skills. It contains two levels: individual state and regional competitions and the National Finals for the winners of these previous contests.

The goal is to design a futuristic city and discussing its important elements of a city: urban planning, zoning, transportation, energy, economy, environment, and education. Team members represent their ideas and proposals in several ways. The theme of the 2010-2011 Competition is "providing a reliable and effective health care product that effectively improves the quality of life and comfort for a patient who is either a senior citizen or has a specific disease, or is suffering from an illness, injury or physical disability."

Future City Finals take place February 19-22, in Washington D.C.

Other programs include:

• The Global Marathon: It is the only event of its kind connecting women in engineering and technology worldwide across a diverse range of disciplines, experience levels, ages, interests, backgrounds, cultures, industries and employers. The event runs March 7-12 and has been expanded from 24 hours to six days to accommodate an increase in programming.
• The tenth annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, February 24, 2011: Through this event, female engineers have introduced more than one million girls and young women to engineering. More than just one day, Introduce a Girl to Engineering is a national movement that shows girls how creative and collaborative engineering is and how engineers are changing our world.
• DiscoverE: provides engineers with educational materials to work with 5.5 million students and teachers during extracurricular programs and in classroom visits to elementary, middle and secondary schools. 

The National Engineers Week Foundation, a formal coalition of more than 100 professional societies, major corporations and government agencies, is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of an interest in engineering and technology careers among young students and by promoting pre-college literacy in math and science. Engineers Week also raises public understanding and appreciation of engineers' contributions to society