Geoscience Education and Global Development

Abstract

A fundamental goal of geoscience education is ensuring that all inhabitants of the planet have knowledge of the natural processes that shape the physical environment, and understand how the actions of humans have an impact on the Earth on local, regional, and global scales. Geoscientists accept that deep understanding of natural processes requires an appreciation of the complex Earth system on a global scale. Indeed, since the publication of the seminal document Earth System Science Overview: A Program For Global Change (NASA, 1986), teaching about the Earth as a system has become the accepted paradigm in the geosciences. Systems thinking has become fundamental to developing Earth literacy (e.g., Earth Science Literacy Initiative, 2009). Given that a global approach to the study of Earth processes is the norm, it is unfortunate that the field of geoscience education remained relatively segregated by country for most of the last century. This is not entirely unexpected, since educational systems and policies are strongly grounded at the local or regional level. Unfortunately, isolating geoscience education within educational boundaries limits the opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas and sharing of lessons learned, thereby delaying progress toward the goal of global Earth systems literacy. A global systems approach to geoscience education, which acknowledges that educational practice and policy in one country could have significant influence in another, is a way to reframe our thinking. Increasing interactions across national borders is a powerful strategy for improving the status of geoscience education on a global scale. Beginning in the 1990s and early 2000s, the frequency of international collaborations increased as geoscience education became firmly established as a field of study, and as researchers and practitioners began to coalesce around core ideas regarding what content is important, which pedagogical approaches are sound, and how learning science theories can be applied to understanding how people learn the geosciences (e.g., Orion et al., 1999; Stainfield et al., 2000). The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) helped facilitate international dialogue on geoscience education beginning in 1990 with the formation of the Commission on Geoscience Education, Training and Technology Transfer (now COGE; 2012). Still, a large proportion of these early collaborations were between researchers and educators in developed countries, and the developing world was all but absent from the conversation. It was not the case that innovations in geoscience education were not happening in the developing world, but rather that poor communication networks to and within the developing world, limited financial resources, and more urgent social and economic priorities inhibited the establishment of developing-developed world partnerships. In the 2010s, we have reached a turning point and entered a time when the field of geoscience education is moving much more rapidly toward becoming truly global in scope, spearheaded in part by the Journal of Geoscience Education's efforts to internationalize its editorial staff and authorship, and bolstered by growing interactions among geoscience research groups. Voices of educators from developing countries are being heard, and the exchange of ideas about educational practices now crosses the developeddeveloping world boundary. A recent milestone was the 2010 International Geoscience Education Organisation conference held in South Africa (IGEO, 2010), which marked the first time the conference was hosted on the African continent and by a country within the developing world. Delegates from Africa, South America, Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia shared the results of their work during the main conference, and met for two days postconference to discuss strategies for enhancing geoscience education in their regions. Concurrent with the expansion of the discipline of geoscience education is the work of the international community at large on the very ambitious United Nations 2015 Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2000). …