Open Access

A touch of space weather! An EGU funded outreach project for blind and visually impaired students

Lenka Zychova January 4, 2023

This image shows four tactile images created to share space weather phenomena with blind and visually impaired learners. The image shows a representation of the magnetosphere (a small blue ball with black concentric circles surrounded by dots to the left and right, the ones on the left are smaller), aurora formation (a small blue ball with black concentric circles to the left and right with dots on the circles) and radiation belts ( a small blue ball with a yellow and brown pair of rings extended evenly to the left and the right). All the images are on a white background.

Image credit: Lenka Zychova

We can all probably agree that the Northern Lights are one of the world’s most spectacular natural displays. But how do we share this beauty with children who are blind? How do we explain the processes behind the aurora creation to the visually impaired when all the illustrations of Earth’s magnetosphere are in 2D? The Northern Lights are just one of the consequences of ‘space weather’. Space weat ...[Read More]

A Pedagogical Dance: EGU’s Teacher-Scientist Pairing Scheme

Solmaz Mohadjer November 25, 2022

Vibeke Aune, a school teacher (left), and Solmaz Mohadjer, a geoscientist (right), discuss how to use scientific data to engage students and improve their learning. Photo credit: Davide Oddone

An email from Giuliana Panieri, a geology professor at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT) in Tromsø, cracked my pandemic bubble late last year. She invited me to join an unconventional expedition (AKMA OceanSenses) to the Arctic Ocean, where scientists worked hand-in-hand with other societal actors, to integrate different kinds of knowledge and create tools that help open up people’s minds to a ...[Read More]

Earth Science Week 2022 – Earth Science for a Sustainable World

Hazel Gibson October 12, 2022

It’s October and that means that once again it’s time for Earth Science Week – a week long celebration of all things Earth Science, initiated by the American Geosciences Institute! To learn more about this history of Earth Science Week check out our previous blog post, but this year the theme is ‘Earth Science for a Sustainable World‘, so today we wanted to share some ...[Read More]

GeoPolicy: Building stronger and more diverse communities at the science-policy interface

Chloe Hill September 30, 2022

One man in a sea of penguins. Taken in 1959. Credit: Adrian Dean. Distributed via Imaggeo

There are numerous reasons why we should want to build stronger and more diverse scientific communities. Greater inclusivity leads to innovation, expands the pool of ideas, broadens perspectives, and encourages more people to engage. Strong and diverse scientific communities allow us to go beyond the information we can produce on our own and scale our research outcomes. But one reason not often ci ...[Read More]