The AAPG Foundation Board of Trustees recently approved funding of $12,000 to support EXPLORER correspondent Susan Eaton’s Elysium Epic Expedition to Antarctica.
The AAPG Foundation Board of Trustees recently approved funding of $12,000 to support EXPLORER correspondent Susan Eaton’s Elysium Epic Expedition to Antarctica.
The 20-day expedition is designed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctica Expedition, but the event includes an educational and outreach component that will begin during the expedition and then, in Eaton’s case, will continue for 12 months following the team’s return from Antarctica and South Georgia.
Eaton, a Calgary-based independent and professional writer who has reported on Canadian activities for the EXPLORER throughout the past decade, will post blogs and provide classroom sessions during her trip with 11th and 12th grade students in Canada.
You can follow Eaton’s blog from Antarctica (see related story) .
The Foundation recently received the initial contribution to its newly created Imperial Barrel Award Fund, in the form of $20,000 from Anadarko Petroleum.
Various companies and individuals have provided support for the AAPG’s Imperial Barrel Award Program (IBA) in the years prior to the fund’s creation, and several pledges already have been made to a Foundation fund that will provide ongoing support.
AAPG’s IBA program is an annual prospect/exploration evaluation competition between university student teams from around the world, all competing to win scholarship funds dedicated to petroleum geoscience education created for geoscience graduate students.
The program is rigorous and contributes to AAPG’s mission of promoting petroleum geoscience training and advancing the careers of geoscience students (see related story) .
Students who participate in the IBA gain experience using real technology on a real dataset. Additionally, students benefit from the feedback provided by the industry panel, the opportunity to impress potential employers in the audience and the chance to win cash prizes for their schools.
Winning teams are selected on the basis of technical quality, clarity and originality in their presentations.
The IBA is a hands-on opportunity for students to experience the creative process and the high-tech science that is the foundation of the Energy Industry today.
The Foundation’s IBA fund was created to allow Corporate Advisory Board companies and individuals to make donations to the overall program or IBA. For other companies the way to sponsor IBA is to complete the form, which also allows for non-CAB companies to sponsor local IBA semi-final rounds as well as the global finals.
Individuals and companies are encouraged to support the Imperial Barrel Award program. Donations are used to help underwrite the cost of transportation and housing expenses for competing teams, luncheons, icebreakers and cash prizes for the universities of the winning teams.
To learn more about AAPG core programs funded by the Foundation go to foundation.aapg.org, or contact Foundation at 1-918-560-2644.