Integrating the ‘the triangle of geography, geology and geophysics’ into sustainable development

In the context of tackling climate change in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, HRH Prince El-Hassan bin Talal has called for an integrated approach to human and natu-ral resources management that takes account of ‘the triangle of geography, geology and geophysics’. The lack of application of geoscientific knowledge to sustainable develop-ment issues is surprising given that advancing human progress lies at the roots of modern geoscience and aligns with the intellectual mindsets and technical skills that geoscientists are trained in. Applying this Earth science toolkit to the challenges of long-term sustaina-bility will require the global geoscience community to repurpose its principles and prac-tices, in particular: (1) better communicating what geoscientists know and do, and how that is socially useful; (2) reaching out to other disciplines more engaged in sustainability issues; and (3) re-designing Earth science education and training programmes to place sustainability and human wellbeing at the heart of a 21st century geoscientist’s profes-sional purpose.

Earth Science Education as a Key Component of Education for Sustainability

Environmental insight has emerged as a new scientific concept which incorporates the understanding that the Earth is made up of interworking subsystems and the acceptance that humans must act in harmony with the Earth’s dynamic balanced cycle. This Earth system competency represents the highest level of knowing and understanding in the geosciences community. Humans have an important role as participative beings in the Earth’s subsystems, and they must therefore acknowledge that life on Earth depends on a geoethically responsible management of the Earth system. Yet, the world is far from achieving sustainable development, making the role of the Earth science education in promoting education for sustainability even more relevant. The Earth system approach to education is designed to be an effective learning tool for the development of the innovative concept of environmental insight. Through a holistic view of planet Earth, students realize that humans have the ability to enjoy a sustainable life on our planet while minimising detrimental environmental impacts. There is growing evidence that citizens value science and need to be informed about Earth system problems such as climate change, resource efficiency, pandemics, sustainable use of water resources, and how to protect bio-geodiversity. By moving away from both traditional practices and traditional perceptions, environmental insight and geoethics will lead towards an education for sustainability that provides the citizens of Earth with the tools they need to address the full complexity of its urgent environmental concerns.

A New Vision of Sustainability in Earth Science Education

Following the culmination of an ambitious Earth science education initiative, scientists and educators met to prioritize ways in which education about Earth can foster sustainable societies.

Field Officers take on the Geoscience Education world

<p>Responding to a widely perceived need for enhancing geoscience education (King, 2013), in 2018 the EGU Committee on Education launched the EGU and IUGS-IGEO Geoscience Field Officer (FO), project. FO Educators are specifically trained and appointed to run professional development activities: teacher workshops based the hands-on activities developed by ESEU Earth Science Education Unit (originally at Keele University) and published in the Earthlearningidea on-line repository. These activities, based on the CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) methodology and successfully tested on nearly 40,000 teachers in the UK (King & Thomas, 2012), are aimed at geoscience teachers without an academic background in this field, or needing training courses in practical geology. The objective is to improve teachers’ knowledge and skills by means of a friendly approach and to raise their self-confidence in addressing geoscience topics in their classes. Six EGU and IUGS-IGEO FOs (the first six authors of this article) translated the activities into their respective national languages, prepared the workshops using commonly available equipment and low-cost materials and begun running workshops in May 2019. Meanwhile, the FOs coordinated their work and exchanged information through e-mail and Skype meetings. By January 2020, the FOs’ activity has included: 16 workshops given in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Morocco, and India for 286 attending teachers from primary and secondary schools. The workshops were evaluated through a questionnaire shared by all the FOs. The feedback showed that all the participants found the approaches very interesting and expressed interest in updating themselves and attending future workshops. The full evaluation data will be presented at a later date. Information about the FO workshops was disseminated through 4 teachers’ conferences, aimed at informing potential participants of the opportunity offered by EGU in the first pilot countries. Following the pleasing results of the first months of the FO project, EGU made a second call for more FOs in EU and non-EU countries. The new FOs will be trained during the EGU General Assembly 2020 in Vienna with the assistance of the existing FOs. Geoscience plays an important role in the operation of society and in protecting the future for all humans. Geoscience underpins key areas of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by all United Nations Member States in the 2030 Agenda (United Nations 2015). The FOs’ dissemination activities will help the geoscience community to include students and teachers from the school level upwards and will result in the forging of interdisciplinary links with other disciplines and in promoting the adoption of sustainable development models in a growing number of countries.</p><p> </p><p>References</p><p>Earthlearningidea website: http//:www.earthlearningidea.com</p><p>King C. (2013). Geoscience education across the globe - results of the IUGS-COGE/IGEO survey. Episodes, 36.1, 19-30.</p><p>King. C. and Thomas, A. (2012). Earth Science Education Unit workshops – an evaluation of their impact. School Science Review. 94(347) 25-35. ISSN 0036-6811.</p><p>United Nations (2015) Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/ documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20 Development%20web.pdf</p>

The future challenge of Earth science education research

This article addresses the question of what the future directions and emphases of the research in the earth science education field ought to be. During the past 30 years, Earth science education research has established a solid theoretical foundation, as well as practical strategies and techniques, for a meaningful teaching of earth science from K-12. However, the quality of this research, and the growing need for knowledge in Earth science, have done little to improve the low profile of ESE in schools worldwide. The article posits that narrowing this disturbing gap between the educational potential of Earth science and its low profile in schools requires a holistic agenda. Such an agenda will encompass the deepening of existing research of the Earth systems approach in areas like the development of environmental insight better understanding the learning process as an embedded human instinct, which will hopefully contribute to changing the current essentialism-based teaching culture. However, it will also include new avenues of research focused on changing the attitudes of geoscientists towards their role in society and the adoption of geoethical values.