“When you see an engineer or geoscientist, smile at him/her,” said local geoscientist engineer Nolan Shaheen, as he made a presentation at Phoenix Academy for Engineering and Geoscience Week.
To celebrate Engineering and Geoscience Week, March 3 to 9, Moose Jaw schools, along with over 100 other schools across the province, co-hosted a showing of the movie, ‘Dream Big: Engineering Our World’ with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS).
This inspiring movie, narrated by Jeff Bridges, explores how engineers improve lives for people around the world by being creative and asking themselves what can happen if you dream big.
Over 150 engineers and geoscientists visit schools in 45 communities to introduce the movie and show students how fun and fulfilling it is to work in the professions.
Moose Jaw Today joined students at Phoenix Academy for the movie screening where Shaheen provided some insights into the fields and explored the many dimensions to these careers. Shaheen works with the Water Security Agency here in Moose Jaw.
“The Professional Engineering Association wanted to bring this video to students, showing them some aspects of engineering and hopefully stimulate some interests in the field. We want students to see how diverse it is and how interesting and important the work of the Professional Association of Engineering and Geoscientists is to the province and the country,” Shaheen said. “We also wanted students to see that the primary goal of engineers is to make the world a safer place for people.”
He spoke about some of the benefits of pursuing a career in engineering and geoscience.
“Getting into engineering or geoscience gives you a lot of opportunities for personal growth. You’re getting into fields that are in demand; there is work out there for people and the jobs are relatively well paid. They are also very rewarding jobs and careers for people.”
He noted that the field continues to grow, and many women are also exploring careers in engineering fields.
“There are lots of students who are showing interest in these fields. Our universities still have great enrollment in engineering. However, one of the biggest thrust now is to try and get more women going into engineering. In the past, it was a predominantly a male driven field but we’re seeing many women in the field now and we want to continue that push.”
Jeff Lynnes, principal at Phoenix Academy, welcomed the insights into the field of engineering and geoscience for his students by APEGS.
“I think the video was really good in that it encourages our students to ‘Dream Big’ as the movie title said. Hopefully, it will inspire our students to go into the sciences and math. The movie was indeed inspiring and great insights from the presentation here today.”
Lynnes says the presentation came at the right time as Phoenix Academy is preparing for an upcoming robotics competition in Calgary.
“We’re preparing for a robotics competition coming up in Calgary. We competed in the last two years and we’re going to try again this year, so we are happy to have Nolan come in and shed some light on engineering and geoscience which is perfect at this time as we’re preparing to compete.”
One student, Chelsea Little, said the movie opened her eyes to all the different aspects of the engineering and geoscience fields.
“I thought the presentation and the movie was very interesting. I didn’t know there were so many aspects to it. It was really cool, especially since we have the robotics competition coming up. It is definitely related to what we like to do here so it was great learning about the different avenues you can take in engineering and geoscience. I might look into engineering and geoscience more now that I know there are so many aspects to it.”
