Led by ESS, this year's National Science and Technology Week (NSTW) was a great success. In the National Capital Region on Sunday, October 17, more than 150 NRCan employees volunteered at the Science Funfest open house, which attracted more than 4,000 visitors. Throughout the week, NRCan representatives gave science presentations to some 900 students and teachers. The Honourable John Efford, Minister of Natural Resources, launched the Government of Canada's Science.gc.ca web portal during a Geoscience Awareness Day held at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The day also featured science presentations from NRCan, Health Canada and the Museum of Nature, with guest speakers Dr. Arthur Carty, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, and the Discovery Channel's Jay Ingram. Attendees included students from across Canada taking part in the 'Encounters with Canada' program.

Many of NRCan's regional offices opened their doors to the public and held a number of events to celebrate NSTW. The GSC office in Vancouver organized a series of "Rock Walk Talks"-one-hour tours of the urban geology around the Robson Street Office. Students, teachers, and clients who visited the office participated in rock-identification contests and scavenger hunts, and the winners received prizes and certificates. The office also held educational sessions such as "Mapmaking 101" and showed students a series of videos relevant to the earth sciences. In collaboration with Parks Canada, GSC employees in Quebec held geological field excursions in Old Quebec City and Montmorency Falls. The Centre for Topographic Information in Sherbrooke opened its doors to the community. Visitors were welcomed to Earth observation demonstrations at the satellite receiving stations in Gatineau, Quebec, and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Several events took place in conjunction with the Corporation of Delta and the Tsawwassen First Nation to highlight NRCan's work on climate change and natural hazards. In the Yukon, several ESS scientists were on hand to answer questions on their research during an event organized by the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Directorate.

Scientists from the Natural Hazard and Emergency Response program of ESS responded to the many requests for media interviews and public talks after the major earthquake and resulting tsunami in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. For example, Garry Rogers (ESS) and Fred Stephenson (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) took part in two information sessions about the potential geohazards along the Cascadia Subduction Zone for concerned citizens on the Saanich Peninsula of British Columbia. Within days, they also participated in a workshop for a large group of first responders and representatives from emergency-related agencies. "Earthquake and Tsunami Hazard on Canada's West Coast", was a free public lecture given by the same ESS experts to a capacity audience at the National Geographic IMAX© Theatre in Victoria. This lecture was organized and the venue donated as a public service by the Geological Association of Canada and the Centre of Earth and Oceans Research (University of Victoria).

A capacity audience in the north heard Dr. Benoit Beauchamp give a talk entitled, 'The Day After Tomorrow' Happened 280 Million Years Ago: Should We Fear Abrupt Climate Change in the Future?, where they were reassured that although climatic shifts have occurred in the past, they are not as rapid as portrayed in popular movies. This 'Charles Camsell Talk' was sponsored by the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines and took place during the Yellowknife Geoscience Forum.

Dr. Lionel Jackson of ESS, and Dr. Michael Wilson, an archaeology and earth science scholar at Douglas College, presented a well-attended free public evening lecture at Vancouver's H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Auditorium in December, 2004. Entitled "The Ice-Free Corridor and the Peopling of the Americas-An Open and Shut Case", this event was organized by the Cordilleran Section of the Geological Association of Canada and highlighted the contributions made by GSC scientists over the past 100 years.

In September 2004, the GSC's Map and Publication Sales office in Vancouver participated for the first time in the popular, local, annual 'Word On The Street Festival'. Staff at the ESS booth sold geoscience publications, answered earth science related questions and made hundreds of contacts among teachers, geology enthusiasts and the public.

Last fall, the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Directorate organized lunchtime screenings for large, appreciative audiences of Arctic Mission-a series of five award winning National Film Board documentaries that explore the impact of global warming on Canada's North. NRCan's Parliamentary Secretary and Member of Parliament for Yukon, Larry Bagnell, introduced the screening of the first documentary in the series. This initiative has helped raise awareness of the impacts of climate change on Canada and the roles of adaptation in addressing them. In December 2004, the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Directorate organized a lunchtime screening of People of the Ice, the fourth episode of the Arctic Mission documentary series. Larry Bagnell, NRCan's Parliamentary Secretary and Member of Parliament for Yukon, gave the opening address to a large gathering.

Two of the latest posters in the highly successful 'Geoscape' series from ESS were launched on Earth Day, April 22, 2004. Geoscape Ottawa-Gatineau: Living with our geological landscape is a large, colourful poster produced by the GSC and its provincial, municipal and academic partners. Geoscape Southern Saskatchewan: Geoscience for Prairie communities was also unveiled on Earth Day by Minister Eric Cline, Department of Industry and Resources, Saskatchewan, at a school in Regina. All of the posters in the series use diagrams, maps, and photographs to illustrate how geological events shaped the landscape, resources, and natural hazards of Canadian regions. More information ...

The Groundwater program of ESS published two 'Waterscape' posters and related web sites to promote water stewardship and science-based decision-making. Waterscape Bowen Island: water for our island community and Waterscape Gulf Islands: protecting and conserving our island water can be downloaded through the Waterscape web site.

GeoConnections, the Calgary Geomatics Cluster and the University of Calgary developed a highly successful series of six posters to raise the awareness of geomatics among Canadian students. These colourful posters illustrate how geomatics is used to address challenges in such areas as natural resources, the environment, agriculture, health, business, and government. In 2004, almost 5,000 complete sets were mailed to secondary and post-secondary schools across Canada and many more were handed out at National Science and Technology Week events across Canada. To order copies, visit http://www.discovergeomatics.com.

Climate change is a popular topic in Canada's classrooms. Consistently high demand prompted reprints of a series of posters that depict the effects of regional climate change in Canada. ESS has distributed some 120,000 of these posters, not only to schools, but also to universities, provincial and municipal governments, non-governmental organizations, and industries throughout the country. Visitors to the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation program's web site can view the posters and order them at http://www.adaptation.nrcan.gc.ca/home_e.asp or by calling 1-800 O-Canada.

In late September 2004, at the invitation of the Fort Vermilion School District, Godfrey Nowlan and Rod Smith of the GSC Office in Calgary conducted a workshop for teachers in High Level, Alberta. Addressing the Grade 7 'Planet Earth' unit of the science curriculum, this workshop is part of a larger outreach effort associated with various Northern Resource Development program projects designed to raise community awareness of geoscience's importance to daily life.

Two day-long geoscience workshops for Grade 10 science teachers were held in Victoria and Kelowna during late October 2004. As part of a province-wide professional development day, these teachers received various Geoscape posters and the 'Temperatures rising' poster from the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program to take to their students. Funded by EdGEO, a national initiative of the Canadian Geoscience Council, the workshops were delivered with the help of GSC volunteers. This partnership between the GSC and EdGEO to "teach the teachers" has proved to be an efficient way to increase geoscience literacy across the country.