Shift by Alberta Innovates
Shift by Alberta Innovates
Beyond the textbook: where students become tomorrow's innovators
What happens when you challenge Alberta's young minds to design earthquake-proof structures and precision farming equipment? Magic. For over 40 years, APEGA's Science Olympics has been transforming how students experience STEM education – moving beyond textbooks to tackle real-world problems with ingenuity and teamwork, and Alberta Innovates is a proud sponsor!
Mohamed El Daly, a civil engineer whose passion for education spans 25 years across three continents, takes us behind the scenes of this provincial-wide competition that's reaching thousands of students annually. "Students get an opportunity to take what they learn in the classroom or in a textbook and put it into an application," he explains, revealing how these challenges directly connect to Alberta's curriculum while mirroring problems that professional engineers tackle daily.
The Science Olympics stands apart from typical competitions through its innovative approach to scoring. Rather than pitting teams against each other, students compete against a transparent rubric where everyone can achieve gold if they meet the criteria. This profound shift teaches young innovators that success doesn't require others to fail – a lesson that resonates throughout STEM careers. The impact goes beyond technical skills, as participants are evaluated on teamwork, communication, creative thinking, and resilience when facing setbacks.
Perhaps most powerful are the stories of transformation, like former participants who return years later as engineering students to volunteer at the very event that sparked their career journey. "I didn't realize STEM is for me... but apparently it is," Mohamed recounts hearing from students who discover their potential through these challenges. With events throughout the year across major Alberta centers and opportunities for parents, teachers and STEM enthusiasts to get involved, the Science Olympics continues building the confidence of tomorrow's problem-solvers.
Want to witness this inspiration firsthand or volunteer? Visit apega.ca or email outreach@apega.ca to learn how you can support Alberta's next generation of innovators.
Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.
Today we're exploring an exciting event that's inspiring the next generation of problem solvers APEGA's Science Olympics. This hands-on competition challenges Alberta students from grades 1 through 12 to think critically, work as a team and tackle real-world problems. Joining me is Mohamed Eldali from APEGA. He's going to break it all down how it works, why it matters and how students, parents and teachers can get involved. Sit back, settle in. Welcome to Shift.
Jon:Welcome Mohamed. How are you today?
Mohamed:I'm good, Jon, thank you.
Jon:Great to be with you. Yeah, it's really nice to chat with you and I'm really excited to learn more about APEGA and, specifically, the Science Olympics that we're going to be talking about, because STEM you know the science, technology, engineering and math as you know I'm referencing the acronym for our listeners is really important, especially in this day and age. So why don't we start off, mohamed? Tell me a little bit about APEGA and tell me a little bit about your background.
Mohamed:Absolutely so. Apega is the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta. We regulate the professions of engineering and geoscience in Alberta on behalf of the government of Alberta. In addition to our main regulatory function, we also run programming outreach programming to inspire Alberta's future generations of engineers and geoscientists and make sure that the pipeline for STEM professionals is well fed and well prepared to embrace and face the challenges that we get every day.
Jon:Right and those challenges in this and we won't get into the politics or anything like that, but there certainly are challenges that have really shone a light upon the importance of what you guys and other organizations are doing in Alberta to prepare for the future. So tell me a little bit about your background, mohamed.
Mohamed:Absolutely so. Since I was a kid, I was always curious about how things work. I loved taking my toys apart. I loved reassembling them, trying to put things together I'm sure as the story of many people that gets into these STEM professions but it really showed how excited I am to see a problem and try to fix it and try to fix it. I was one that when a toy breaks, I get so excited and happy because I now have an opportunity to fix it or assemble it with another toy and create a third new product. And it was really great. A hybrid toy. Absolutely. I love this. Yeah, exactly it also, I think, my passion.
Mohamed:I'm a visual learner by sense and I really enjoyed visualizing math and physics. It helped me understand them in many ways. And I found and discovered my passion in teaching. While in high school I was volunteering with orphanages, youth shelters, just to explain basic concepts, and there is nothing that compares to the feeling you get when you see the spark in someone's eyes when they finally understood a concept or they finally gets it. It's the great best thing ever. And I continued with this as I went into engineering. I'm a civil engineer by trade. I've been in the industry for many, many, many years and I always say I'm an engineer by trade and an educator by passion. I've been in this space for the past 25 years, so I love it. I've designed and worked in outreach programming and delivered programming in three continents Asia, africa and North America so really proud and enjoy doing that.
Jon:Well, that's really cool and I think it's a perfect lead-in to what you're leading with APEGA, and that's the Science Olympics. So when you and I first chatted about this, I had a real kind of vague knowledge of what the Science Olympics were all about. But I'm hoping that we can capture some of that excitement that I had from our first discussion, because when you started talking about it, it really turned on a lot of lights for me. So why don't you give us a bit of an overview of the Science Olympics and what makes it a unique learning experience for Alberta students?
Mohamed:learning experience for Alberta students, absolutely so. The APEGA Science Olympics is an interactive inter-school event for students in grades 1 to 12. Students apply their problem solving skills to come up with innovative solutions to a series of challenges that we hand over to them, and these challenges are designed to demonstrate how engineering and geoscience impact our everyday work. The challenges are related to Alberta school curriculum. They are developed by STEM professionals and by local teachers and educators, and this model of getting students engaged in it is really unique because it takes the traditional classroom learning and put it into practice and application. In other words, students get an opportunity to take what they learn in the classroom or in a textbook and put it into an application. Look at how this piece of information or knowledge turns to solve a real world problem, and this is huge because this level of understanding gets really amplified when you apply the knowledge that you learn. So it doesn't stop at the surface level of just listening to a concept. You really get to apply it in a hands-on way.
Jon:Now I got to tell you. So you had sent me a video of the Science Olympics and there was a shot in that. I'll include the video for listeners as well on our page for this podcast so they can see that as well. But what I found really interesting was you had a segment in there where you were asking some kids to design a structure that was earthquake-proof. Now, excuse me, when I thought of that it brought me back to a previous podcast I had just done with a group, an organization that's working on what they call massive timber structures, with our organization, seafar Technologies. Now what this company is doing is building structures that are earthquake-proof essentially.
Jon:So when I saw the video, I couldn't help but think here you guys are creating this environment for grades 1 through 12. That has then got these real world applications going on down the street in Edmonton, alberta, where we've got an organization that you know, cifr, who's trying to break things to see what that, what the logical limits are of a technology. So it was really cool to see that it's not just something that's happening, you know, like a theoretical exercise for kids to, you know, to amuse them. It's, while there's probably a lot of fun involved, there are real world applications that we can see going on beyond that. So that was real exciting for me and yeah, yeah. So how do these on that? When you think about those problem solving challenges, helping students to develop their critical thinking, why are these skills so important for future careers in STEM?
Mohamed:That's a really interesting question. When we design these challenges and when students get an opportunity to work on them, what they find when they first work on it. It's not a standard. Here's the problem. Here are the steps that I learned in the classroom to address or solve this problem and come up with a solution. There isn't really a way to come up with this solution except putting your collective team efforts and skills and competencies together and keep trying and coming up with an approach and testing it, and then it doesn't work, going back to the whiteboard, testing it and going on and on. So it really resembles what we do as professionals when you graduate and you start facing problems that I didn't learn this in the classroom and truly understand. The classroom wasn't designed to teach you how to solve every or the solution to every problem. It gave you the foundational elements that you need to then put into practice and come up with your own solutions.
Mohamed:You mentioned some of the challenges I can share. We have a challenge this year where the students are supposed to design a precision seeding machine to design a precision seeding machine that's used in agricultural land to properly space seeding so that you reduce waste of seeds. Lots of machines now just randomly spread seeds, which is inefficient and it does not allow for optimal growth. So now these students need to figure out a way to use emerging technologies and to design such a machine, and this is directly related to industries in Alberta, especially in the south, in Medicine Hat and Lethbridge, where there's lots of communities working on something like that.
Mohamed:Other challenges coming up. They are going to be a mining exploration geophysicist looking to explore a piece of land and to find rich reserves of rare earth materials. These are the materials that we use in everyday technologies and in the emerging technologies that are coming up. So, as you said, we come and look at real problems that we're facing, implement it in a way that is easy for students to understand, but still they can see how they relate the learning in the classroom to real-world problems and mimic what STEM professionals do every day.
Jon:So now, how do you? This event runs, the Science Olympics run once a year, correct, correct. And right now you're doing it in Edmonton and Calgary.
Mohamed:Edmonton and Calgary. Fort McMurray, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Lloydminster.
Jon:Oh, right on, so right across the province. Not completely right across, but covering a good swath of it. Okay, so now, how does it work? Walk me through the steps. When are the events happening?
Mohamed:So the events are happening throughout the year. In the province it happens different times. So in Edmonton it's on April 5th, in Calgary it's May 24th. Red Deer is April 26th. Other cities dates are being confirmed as we speak, so listeners can always check our website to find these dates. But then on every day the events are pretty much similar in terms of the challenge we would put to the students and how we go about judging and scoring it.
Jon:Okay, so now, while it might be a bit late for this year, for next year, people hearing the podcast and getting a sense of how the Science Olympics are working. They can check the website, they can figure out how to allocate time with teachers or with the students to put teams together. And then you list the challenges. Yes, you say these are the challenges that you need to solve, and you told me about three of them just now. So then, how does someone interested in this get together to put a team together? Absolutely what happens?
Mohamed:Absolutely so. As you mentioned, edmonton and Calgary are actually full this year. We have over 1,200 students in each city lined up to participate over 1,200 students in each city lined up to participate. That being said, if listeners are in Edmonton and Cargill, they're welcome to come and attend the event and even observing it and having their children come and observe it and observe the excitement. They are more than welcome. We have exhibits and booths from different student groups on university campuses and other not-for-profit organizations demonstrating applications of STEM in everyday lives. So there is opportunity for people to even come In the future or next year.
Mohamed:What I recommend parents and teachers do is check our website around September, so early in the school year we usually open registration. You put a team together, so you put a team of five students four to five students. It can be a teacher putting a team within their classroom or a parent bringing their child and their friends together to lead them. We sometimes encourage teachers. Some teachers want to have all the classrooms so they can run a mini competition within their classroom and then select a team or more to bring to the classrooms. So they can run a mini competition within their classroom and then select a team or more to bring to the event when you register. After a month or so, like around October, we release the challenges to everyone and we release the rubric on how we judge as well. We want it to be transparent. This is how we're going to score and this is what you're going to be evaluated on. So you go and get to work on the challenge from October all the way until the event runs March, april or May, depending on when we book it. So you have a few months to work on this classroom challenge.
Mohamed:It's usually a bigger challenge, requires a lot of work, a lot of thinking and, because it ties to the Alberta curriculum, the teachers can use it to be an application of what they're teaching. So you're teaching a component and then you see the application and it's not only science, it's interdisciplinary, so it encompasses science, math, social studies. You can really bring a couple of concepts and subjects together as students are working on this concept. And then you come and get your challenge or project judged on the day of the event. And then we also share another challenge on the day of the event. We call it the mystery challenge, where students can really put to the test on the spot all the skills and learning that they've learned throughout the classroom. Challenge and seeing how they can put it in a shorter period of time without the guidance or the coaching of an educator or a parent, just for themselves. And it really helps them hone this skill when you keep applying it and apply the same way of thinking as you're approaching a problem.
Jon:Those problem-solving skills. So the students, then those teams, they're not necessarily competing against one another, they're competing against that rubric and those guidelines that you have.
Mohamed:Absolutely and you tell them you are competing against yourself. So the way we structure the scoring is right in this rubric and we clearly state this is the number of points you need to get to score the gold or the silver or the bronze. So all teams can score gold if they meet the threshold of gold or silver or bronze, because in real life that's how it works. There isn't one way to solve a problem, there is multiple ways to solve a problem, and for me to be successful, it doesn't mean that someone else has to fail. Actually, we can all succeed and all contribute to the advancement of society. So we wanted to shift the mindset of students from competing against each other to competing against yourself. See how you're performing one year or on a challenge and then challenge yourself Can I perform better? Can I score higher on the rubric? So it's a race against myself and my skills and my competencies, not against someone else.
Jon:Right Now. You mentioned earlier that students are welcome to come and if they're not participating in the actual Science Olympics, they're welcome to come and check it. They're not participating in the actual Science Olympics they're welcome to come and check it out, absolutely so, yeah. So tell me a little bit about volunteers. Is there an opportunity for someone who's like you know? I'm really behind STEM and I really support this idea of you know, inspiring and educating 1 through 12. I'd like to get involved. How does that work? How does that look?
Mohamed:educating 1 through 12,. I'd like to get involved. How does that work? How does that look? We would love to have people volunteer. We actually the one limiting ability for us to expand this event to even more students is volunteering On the day of the event. We currently have around 200 to 250 volunteers and we're looking for more. So anyone who has a passion for STEM, who is excited and wants to support, can go on our website or email us at outreach at apegaca to offer volunteering and we'll add them or register them and show them how to go about it. We put training sessions to the volunteers before the day of the event to walk them through what needs to be done. So we're always looking for people who would love to volunteer from the community and to contribute and support the advancement of this event.
Jon:Okay, that's good to know. How do you guys ensure that the event is lined up with Alberta Curriculum? Are you working fairly closely with the Alberta Teachers Association? How do you do that? How do you make sure it's aligned so we?
Mohamed:do work with educators, with teachers. We have on staff some former teachers and we work with some teachers. Within the school system. We have the learning outcomes for all the different grades and we work first to come up. We have working groups of engineers and geoscientists to volunteers who come up with all the ideas. What are the problems that we're currently facing? Look at these list of problems. Which ones can we turn them to? A challenge that is relatively easy and doable within the timeframe that we have? How do they tie to the learning outcomes and curriculum outcomes in the Alberta curriculum? And then we do this kind of exercise to come up with all these ideas Because at the end of the day, we know it's going to take time from educators, from students, and we want it to be meaningful and valuable in the work that they do.
Jon:Well, you know what I like to. You just made a real interesting. Well, you made many interesting points, but one of them that I just kind of focused in on there was the time the time that it takes. Now we already know, you know, teachers are pretty stretched, but, as you'd said earlier, it doesn't have to be a teacher that leads this. It could be a parent of one of the students that's excited about something in STEM. Well then, put a team together and the parent can help lead that. What does it look like in terms of registration? Is there a fee for people to participate?
Mohamed:There is a fee for per team to participate collectively, so it's nominal fee to participate. So the team is a team of five and registration depending on the city across the province and where it can be anywhere from $50 to $80, give or take for a team of five. You get, of course, to participate, you get a t-shirt, you get some swag and you get to really enjoy the fun of this whole day. And we feed participants as well, so we make sure that you get excited and well-fed, well, nice, you know, food and swag.
Jon:That goes a long way and again, from seeing the video, it looks like there's a real cool energy going on there with with all of the participants. Absolutely, you know and, and you know, I, I know my son, I've got a 13 year old and there's there's volunteer hours that they have to, uh, that they have to hit, you know, with with you know, maybe in social studies I can't remember what class specifically, but there's a chance for them to fill some of those hours too by volunteering with you guys. Absolutely, parents involved. So for again, from my perspective, I'd really like to encourage people to check that out and, you know, support grade 1 through 12 and support the work that apeg is doing here to stimulate the growth and the inspiration of kids in stem. So talk to me a bit about, you know, beyond this competition, what kind of impact do you see an event like this having on students?
Mohamed:It's one of the biggest and most important aspects of why we do these events and I always share with our team and the volunteers that in the morning. Remember that these are students that you will have a huge impact on. You might not really see the result of your impact, but trust that one day down the road some of these students would remember the influence and the impact you had on them and might be the deciding factor for them going and pursuing a STEM career. The biggest benefit of this event and students participating in it is the huge amount of confidence they get in their abilities and realizing. You know what. I can make it.
Mohamed:I didn't realize STEM is for me, math is for me, physics is for me, but apparently it is, and this myth that I heard that it's not for me is not true. I did it, I scored, I solved the problem. Maybe it's not the best solution. Now my head did it, I scored, I solved the problem. Maybe it's not the best solution. Now my head is spinning and I'm getting more and more solutions. They realize I can make it, it can be done, which is huge.
Jon:Yeah, yeah, and it makes me think, you know, often we're told in science, you know there's a scientist or someone will have that eureka moment where it's one individual that solved a problem. And typically that's myth, Because typically it's groups of people.
Mohamed:So this is one huge component because, as you said, they realize that they reach this problem solution as a team and not as an individual. So this is really important. The other piece is how we frame science and STEM for them, that we're not judging them. There is a score on the technical solution, but it's a small component. But we're scoring them on teamwork, on communication, on creative thinking, on failing and coming up with new approaches and how they dealt with setbacks. So we start framing their understanding of STEM that it's not only my mark or grade in math and science, it's beyond that. There is more interpersonal skills and if I have a group of these skills and I know how to work with others, I can be a successful STEM professionals.
Mohamed:And we've seen last year I had a volunteer approach me and asked if I remember them and I was like remind me me and asked if I remember them and I was like remind me and they were actually a grade three students participating in our event. They continued to participate. Now they graduated, pursued engineering and they were in their last year of engineering program, coming to volunteer and judge the event that they were at. So when you hear something like this and you get an opportunity for someone to share. It's definitely a moment that we cherish a lot. Many of our volunteers have participated in the event. Science Olympics has been going on for more than 40 years, so we have a lot 40 years, 40 years and more. So we have a lot of volunteers who participated as students and are now engineers and geoscientists coming back, giving back to the community and just them, standing there and sharing with students. I've been in your place and I made. It Makes a huge difference in the confidence of these students, oh for sure.
Jon:Well, and you know that idea that iteration and failure is acceptable, absolutely. You know, you build on that. And, just as a quick aside, you know I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs by virtue of you know my role in communications at Alberta Innovates, and entrepreneurs quickly mention that as well. That's, a huge component of growing is failure. So you know, I think we need to learn to understand, embrace that a little more as a tool to learn and to move us, uh, move us forward. Um, I think that's really fantastic that that people are reaching out. You know where to show that they've been. You know they participated in something like a grade three and now they're. They're still thinking about it and they're still giving back.
Jon:This leads me to a question that's. You know this is the dark, seedy underbelly. Now you mentioned this program's been going on for 40 years. I had not really been aware of it until you and I had our first discussion. Now I've put two kids through school. Well, one's in grade eight, the other one is graduated university. But how come? I'm sure some listeners will go, I was unaware of this, how? You may not have the answer, but how do we promote this? How come? The schools aren't promoting it. How do we, how do we create more of a buzz around this?
Mohamed:that's an excellent question and I I don't. I'll be very honest and can I say I don't have a? And I'll be very honest and candid and say I don't have a straightforward answer to it. I can share what we're doing and anticipate why this might be happening, but we do communicate and share the information about the event with all the school boards across Alberta. We send brochures, posters, pre-pandemic brochures, posters, pre-pandemic Now. We share and send digital materials to all schools, to all returning educators or those that participated with us in the past.
Mohamed:We are on social media promoting it, the clip that I shared with you. We put it out there to raise awareness about the event. I get it as well. On the other hand, teachers, educators, school administrators have a lot on their plate. There is a lot of information out there that sometimes you have to just skip and it might not come in front of you right. So we keep trying to promote it as much as possible and I hope that today, through your podcast, more and more people will be aware of it and we'd love to welcome more people.
Mohamed:We'd love to grow the program even in more cities across Alberta and expand it within the existing cities as well. So we have 1,200 students in Edmonton. I'd love to see them 3,000. But it means a bigger venue, way more volunteers, way more support from the community and the schools. I'd love to see schools running their own mini Science Olympics as a preparation to sending the top teams to our event. So there are many creative ways that we can do collectively as well. But you're right, we keep trying and our communications department is doing a fantastic job putting us out there on social media and have media presence. But there's lots of information out there.
Jon:Well, and I think a good reminder is that you'd said the teachers and administrators and support staff can be stretched pretty thin already, and we know things like the strike right now might be exacerbating that. But parents, here's where, here's where we can step up. You know it can be parents that that lead these teams, and you know. So let's, let's leave it at that, but I think it's an exciting event that you're putting on. Personally, I'm looking to support it by volunteering. Give me those addresses again, the URLs. People want to go online, they want to learn more. They're going to go to apegacom or ca ca, ca.
Mohamed:And then they will see, under educators and students, the K-12 programs and it will be there the Science Olympics and all the other programs we run.
Jon:Okay, and then to follow you guys on social media. What would they look for? Is it APEGA again On?
Mohamed:LinkedIn it's apega, underscore ab. On youtube it's at apega and then abca. So apega, abca. If they go on our website they see all the links of our social media accounts and they can check it out and and and connect with us the easiest way. If they have any questions, just email us also at outreach at apegaca, and we'll be more than happy to provide any information that people are looking for.
Jon:Outreach at apegaca again A-P-E-G-A Now, mohamed, this was a real pleasure to have you on and chat about this. Are there any final words you'd like to leave?
Mohamed:us with. Thank you for inviting us and allowing us to share our passion for STEM and for this work with your audience. I'm looking forward to welcome people just coming and observing or having their children sign up in the upcoming events that we have, or even in future years their children sign up in the upcoming events that we have or even in future years and I'll extend my invitation again to your audience to consider volunteering and offering how they can help. If they are entrepreneurs or people that have ideas or projects that they would like to demonstrate or display, please reach out to us. You're welcome in our exhibit area. We would love to have these students, after they finish their challenge and before they go home with their trophies and medals, to drop by the exhibit area and to see the real applications of STEM in today's world.
Jon:That's great Thanks, Mohamed. Thank you so much, ron. Shift can be found online at shift[dot]albertainnovates[dot]ca, or you can reach that shift at albertainnovatesca. Until next time, I'm Jon. Have a great day, thank you.
