One person can make a difference in the engineering profession and in National Engineers Week. Here are 50 ways to try.

1. The 100th anniversary of powered, piloted flight was celebrated in 2003. Check out the history of aviation and share the excitement of a flight simulation of the original Wright Flyer.

2. Check the National Engineers Week Internet site - www.eweek.org -weekly to find out what's new and what activities have been added to the "Featured Local Activity."

3. Introduce a Girl to Engineering! Use the free EWEEK "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day" kit or place a public service announcement in your local movie theater.

4. Volunteer to help a local middle school participating in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition™. Or, you can help sponsor a prize or judge a local contest. You may even win a trip to Washington, D.C.! Visit www.futurecity.org

5. Contact a teacher or principal to speak at a local elementary, middle or high school and provide hands-on experiments relevant to engineering and careers.

6. Visit Internet sites of your professional and technical organizations to see what they are doing for Engineers Week. If they don't show anything, help create ideas and suggest they link to www.eweek.org!

7. Enter news of your local activities on the www.eweek.org database and enter your name as a local contact

8. From Jeremy Hubers: Get involved with a volunteer organization such as Habitat for Humanity and represent your engineering chapter with a volunteering spirit.

9. Visit the online Sightseer's Guide to family-friendly engineering-related travel attractions and suggest an interesting landmark or attraction in your community as an addition to the Guide. Suggested sites must be accessible to the general public."

10. Contact the Junior Engineering Technical Society (www.jets.org) to request guidance brochures for various engineering disciplines and explore high school programs.

11. Open your college engineering lab for public tours.

12. Help kids ages 6-12 ZOOM Into Engineering with a toolkit developed by WGBH television specifically for National Engineers Week volunteers

13. Present a demonstration for high school science and math clubs.

14. Urge high school and college engineering students to use the current "New Faces of Engineering" as a resource.

15. Contact your employer's internal communications staff and let them know when Engineers Week will occur. Present ideas for ways to celebrate the company's achievements.

16. Visit www.discoverengineering.org and promote this site to middle school students.

17. Contact a middle or high school and offer to have a student shadow you on the job.

18. Write a letter to your local newspaper editor letting him/her know about the importance of engineering to your community or adapt a former Chair's editorial to illustrate examples from your community.

19. Plan a special recognition luncheon in your office and invite the CEO or chief technical officer to participate.

20. Order Engineers Week materials that can help with your programs.

21. Visit www.greatachievements.org for useful information about great engineering achievements of the past 100 years.

22. Donate mystery books with an engineering background, children's books, posters and bookmarks to a local public or school library for an Engineers Week "corner."

23. Visit Connecting the World to Engineering and urge engineering students and young professionals to use the forum to generate interest in Engineers Week.

24. Visit www.nae.edu/awards to learn about the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the "Nobel Prize" of engineering.

25. Organize an extracurricular program for young students, such as a tour or competition. Build spaghetti bridges, race boats or design and build Rube Goldberg-like machines.

26. Contact a local speakers bureau (try the Chamber of Commerce) and offer to speak before local civic and business groups.

27. Develop and maintain a directory of engineering societies or company engineers willing to visit schools, and let schools know this list is available.

28. Organize an Engineers Week Committee with your office or professional society chapter.

29. Organize a walking or bus tour of interesting engineering achievements in the community.

30. Sponsor a workshop to help teachers understand what engineers do.

31. Host a program at a local Boys & Girls Club.

32. Participate in an engineering fair at a local college. Many engineering schools host such fairs during Engineers Week.

33. Enter a contest here.

34. Suggest a contest to eweek@nspe.org.

35. Create special exhibits in public spaces at your office. Place Engineers Week tent cards on tables in the company cafeteria.

36. Offer to create an Engineers Week Internet site for a local committee.

37. Order Engineers Week notecards for informal correspondence.

38. Volunteer to serve as a judge for a school science or technology fair.

39. Wear an Engineers Week t-shirt or cap.

40. Send an Engineers Week modem cord winder or water bottle to clients or your children's teachers.

41. Take information from the Engineers Week Internet site on the engineering of chocolate, potato chips and other little-known engineering connections and pass it along to your company newsletter, local newspaper or local school.

42. Suggest improvements to this web site.

43. Help with a local MATHCOUNTS competition that occurs during Engineers Week.

44. Contact a high school guidance counselor. Offer to talk with students and provide Engineering & You brochures or an Engineers Week video for the guidance office.

45. Organize an essay contest for a local class.

46. Contact a local science center. Provide bookmarks and posters or offer to run a hands-on demo. Visit the online Breaking Through: the Creative Engineer for ideas on using local examples to showcase creative engineering.

47. Work with community television to provide Engineers Week videos, engineering movies and public service announcements.

48. Order a National Engineers Week banner from a local sign store and display it at your workplace entrance.

Here's number 49 from EWEEK Headquarters! 

49. Contact National Engineers Week headquarters to see if there is an Engineers Week organization in your area.

Number 50 comes from engineer Ron Clark, who plans to offer the Engineering merit badge to the local Boy Scout troop, visit the local school's solar powered vehicle, and offer a tour of a power plant.

Keep those suggestions coming!

Tell us how YOU celebrate Engineers Week; if we use your suggestion YOU win an ever-popular National Engineers Week T-shirt or baseball cap!