geoscience education

Bringing scientists and teachers together for the Cape Town GIFT workshop

Friedrich Barnikel February 2, 2024

Hands-on action at the Two Oceans Aquarium in GIFT Cape Town, 2023

Many teachers follow path writ by a particular diction, which reads “lifelong learning”. There is no other way, actually, to keep track of all of these fast changing issues and challenges of today’s world, which, in many ways, touch geoscientific topics (climate change, food security, geopolitics, to name but a few). Consequently many teachers are eager to learn from science as much as they can in ...[Read More]

Can anyone engage in geoscience outreach or does it take certain skills?

Gillian D'Souza September 1, 2023

Students from the secondary school of Nisyros guided in Stefanos crater by Evi Nomikou

On 20 October 2023, a team of geoscientists will host EGU’s Geoscience Day in Santorini and Nisyros (Greece) with a diverse audience: 60 young students from Nisyros Elementary School, 120 students from the Vocational High School of Santorini, educators, local journalists and representatives of the tourism industry. With such a mixed group of attendees, one might expect unique challenges that ...[Read More]

Meet the EGU Education Committee!

Simon Clark May 26, 2023

Members of the EGU Education Committee From top-left to bottom-right: Giuliana Panieri, Carlo Laj, Annegret Schwarz, Teresita Gravina, Francesca Funiciello, Stavros Stathopoulos

The EGU’s Education Committee (EC) helps to bring science to educators, from higher education funding grants and coordinating training programmes to bringing teachers to Vienna to participate in the annual GIFT (Geoscience Information For Teachers) workshop and meet with scientists at the EGU General Assembly. In this article, six of the volunteer committee members reflect on what it’s ...[Read More]

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]