Planet Earth WHERE Challenge

Canada’s Earth Sciences need a baby boom.  Badly.  

Canada is facing a “looming and wide-ranging” shortage of qualified scientists. The drivers behind much of our environmental innovation and technology.  The next five to ten years will see a vicious circle of too many retirements and not nearly enough graduation.  

That is, unless the WHERE Challenge has the intended effect. It’s mandate is quite simple: to inspire the next generation of earth scientists to, well, become earth scientists.  Targeted at the 10 to 14 age group, WHERE aims to educate and stimulate inquiring young minds about the role earth sciences play in everyday life.  

Simply, more young people need to choose earth science as a career path.  Without the next generation of earth scientists filling the void, the combination of the shortfall and rising demand for their services will seriously impact industries like oil & gas, mining, environmental, geotechnical, government, and academia. Ultimately, it will have an adverse effect on the Canadian economy as a whole.   

How do you encourage kids to think science, you ask? Appeal to their inner nobility, yes, but also with cold, hard cash. Students and schools submit stories to compete for prizes, writing about any object in their home or school, identifying one or more non-renewable Earth resources found in that object and where those resources come from.

It’s a healthy start.  As any parent can tell you, real change can only ever come from the next generation.