Washington, DC Public Radio, Metro Transit
Announcements Promote EWeek Discover Engineering Family Day

IEEE-USA is sponsoring announcements on Washington, DC’s all-classical public radio station and in the capital city’s Metro transit system that promote  Discover Engineering Family Day, to be held at the National Building Museum in Washington on Saturday, 21 February.  

Discover Engineering Family Day, part of Engineers Week 2009, provides an interactive day-long program to introduce youngsters and their families to the excitement of engineering. The program engages more than 6,000 participants annually in “hands-on” and “minds-on” experiences to create an interest in engineering principles that are encountered in everyday life. The 2009 event encourages attendees to “work with engineers to invent something new.”

IEEE-USA and the National Engineers Week Foundation are major sponsors of EWeek Family Day. More information is available at http://www.eweek.org/EngineersWeek/FamilyDay.aspx

IEEE-USA has contracted with Metro transit to place posters promoting Family Day in 100 rail cars on all five Metro rail lines, plus installation of two lighted dioramas at the Judiciary Square/Building Museum Metro station. The Metro placements have been timed to coincide with record breaking use of the transportation system by hundreds of thousands of riders expected during the Presidential inauguration in Washington on 20 January.

Additionally, IEEE-USA is running promotional announcements highlighting Family Day in January and February on WETA-FM — broadcast during NPR and PBS news programs at http://www.weta.org/fm, and posted online in a community calendar at http://www.weta.org/local/calendar

Through its support of Family Day and other public awareness activities, IEEE-USA seeks to counter a public perception, cited in the last Harris interactive opinion poll on engineers and scientists, that engineers show less interest in their local communities than scientists. For more information on IEEE-USA’s public awareness program, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/default.asp