INTERNATIONAL UNION OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES (IUGS) COGE - ANNUAL REPORT 2011 1. TITLE OF CONSTITUENT BODY IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education, Training and Technology Transfer (IUGS-COGE) 2. OVERALL OBJECTIVES Mission Statement The IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education, Training and Technology Transfer (COGE) was established in 2004 to examine and develop programs to assist developed and developing countries to maintain, expand or introduce better Earth Science education, outreach and technology transfer within their country. Goals COGE original goals are summarized as follows:

• Identify gaps in education, training and technology transfer both conceptually and geographically.

• Together with other relevant bodies in or outside the IUGS family, develop strategies for the coordination of existing and the development of new programmes in geoscience education, training and technology transfer based on the identified gaps.

• Produce a 5-year Action Plan together with an annual plan of action including budget.

• Organise meetings, conferences and workshops for geoscience educators and to disseminate information on new trends and topics in the field of geosciences.

• Develop specific programmes on the continuation and coordination of training courses, especially through generation of teaching materials and provision of training courses.

• Encourage publications of handbooks or textbooks at an international level to help bridge recognised gaps in the training of and education for geoscientists.

• Facilitate the harmonisation of geoscience presentation with different cultures in order to enhance the development of ethics in geoscience education.

• Assist in the distribution of geoscience teaching materials, including books, videos, equipment, etc.

In addition, in accordance with the foundational spirit of the Commission, and the view and indications of the IUGS Executive Committee (EC), it was agreed by COGE members, and approved in 2010 by the IUGS EC (see 2010 Annual Report):

• To support and strengthen the original objectives of the Commission.

• To examine their own interests and redefine some of such goals, emphasizing the significance of the involvement of Geosciences-related companies mainly in the framework of training and technology transfer issues.

• To establish new collaborations between COGE and the Association of Geoscientists for International Development (AGID) and the International Center for Training and Exchanges in the Geosciences (CIFEG), because it could be helpful in the context of existing and possible joint activities of IUGS and UNESCO (e.g. Geoeducation in Africa).

• To update the content of the COGE website, changing its design in order to give it a new face, which clearly and unequivocally reflects its link with IUGS.

• To hold a COGE meeting at the International Geological Congress in Brisbane.

3. ROLE WITHIN IUGS SCIENCE POLICY IUGS Executive Committee and Strategic Planning Committee

• Ochir Gerel (incorporated as a new COGE member in 2011) is one of the IUGS Vice-Presidents.

• Gary Lewis (Former Chair of COGE) and Ochir Gerel are members of the

IUGS Strategic Planning Committee. COGE involvement in IUGS official meetings

• The COGE Chair was invited to give a talk in the IUGS 50th Anniversary Event at the UNESCO Headquarters (21 February 2011). Session: “IUGS looking into the Future”. Title: IUGS/COGE: The significance of partnership, capacity building and a multidisciplinary approach in geosciences education.

• COGE was also present in the subsequent IUGS 61st Executive Committee Meeting (February 22-25, 2011).

• The COGE Chair helped facilitate related contacts (National Commission

of Geology of Spain) for the IUGS EC meeting proposed in Spain 2012.

Strategic Action Plan – ARC -

• Following the recommendation by the IUGS Strategic Planning Committee (2000), the performance of all IUGS scientific bodies, including Commissions, Committees and Working Groups, shall be reviewed periodically. To this end the IUGS Executive Committee in its Strategic Action Plan (April 2001) established the system of Ad-hoc Review Committees (ARC), the primary role of which is to review the activities of these scientific bodies. 29 September 2011 an Ad-hoc Review Committee (ARC) was held in the “Centro de Astrobiología”, CSIC-INTA, Madrid (Spain) to review the activities of the Commission. The ARC recommended that IUGS should continue to support COGE, advocating performing 13 well defined Actions (see Annex 1).

4. ORGANIZATION Names of people in Leadership positions

• The current COGE commissioners are:

• Jesús Martínez-Frías - Chair (Spanish National Research Council, Spain)

• Chris King (Keele University - United Kingdom) - nominated & approved as Vice-Chair after the ARC Meeting (29 September 2011)

• Jennifer Nocerino (Secretary/Treasurer – Geological Society of America)

• Ochir Gerel (IUGS Vice President – Mongolian University of Science & Technology, Mongolia) – nominated & approved as new member (28 February 2011)

• Adriana Niz (National University of Catamarca, Argentina) – appointed as new member – nominated & approved as new member (16 October 2011)

• Chan-Jong Kim (Seoul National University - South Korea) • Greg McNamara (Geological Society of Australia - Australia) • Alan Morgan (Waterloo University - Canada) • Ian Clarke (University of Adelaide - Australia) • Gary Lewis (Geological Society of America) • R. Shankar (Mangalore University - India) • Miguel Cano (Bicol University - Philippines) • Ashvin Wickramasooriya (South Eastern University of Sri Lanka)

In accordance with Actions 6 and 13 (see Annex 1), recommended by the ARC Committee, specific contacts were mantained with Dr. Ezzoura Errammi, during the First International Conference on African & Arabian Geoparks (21-28 November 2011, El Jadida, Morocco) for the appointment of two African women geoscientists as potential candidates for the Commisison. 5. EXTENT OF NATIONAL/REGIONAL/GLOBAL SUPPORT FROM SOURCES OTHER THAN IUGS

• The GSA covered some of the administrative costs and infrastructure to manage the IUGS COGE commission to date (i.e. overhead).

6. INTERACTION WITH OTHER INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS Partnership and joint projects Earth Learning Idea

• COGE main partners to date are IGEO, AGID, and International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO). The Earth Learning Idea (ELI) website was accomplished by three individuals on a voluntary basis, but it has received support of $1000 USD from IUGS/COGE. The ELI website (http://www.earthlearningidea.com/), where the IUGS logo is highlighted in the Acknowledgements, received almost half million visitors since 2008. The Earth Learning Idea had been accessed in 166 countries and 8,483 towns/cities globally. There had been 457,354 pdf downloads of Earth Learning Idea activities globally, averaging nearly 20,000 per month over the past year, with 38,436 downloads in February 2011.

Geoscience education and Geoethics

• IUGS/COGE has worked closely with AGID for fostering partnership and joint projects regarding Geoethics (AGID Symposium on Geoethics: a) creation of AGID National Chapter in Spain, where the IUGS logo is highlighted; b) coordination and housing of the international website on Geoethics (http://tierra.rediris.es/Geoethics_Planetary_Protection/); c) participation of COGE members (Ochir Gerel and Jesus Martinez-Frias) in the Geoethics International Section of the Mining Pribram Symposium (October, 2011) and d) taking part in the making of the “International Declaration of Geoethics” (point 3 of the Declaration indicates: “To strengthen the links of geoethics with the new aspects of the geosciences education”.

IUGS/COGE GEO-ERA initiative - GEOscience Education Roadmap for Africa -

• Despite the numerous science education activities focused on Africa, there is no yet a real “Geoscience Education Roadmap” for the whole

continent, which takes into account not only that “Africa is one” (GSAf Chair, Prof. Aberra Mogessie dixit), but also the diversity of its regions and the idiosyncrasy and specific needs of each African country. Following the IUGS recommendation concerning Africa as a potential location for the development of COGE activities, an initiative named GEO-ERA (GEOscience Education Roadmap for Africa; 2012-2016) was proposed by the COGE Chair during the IUGS meeting in February in Paris.

In order to accomplish the IUGS recommendations regarding partnership with other institutions and organizations, specific contacts for the joint coordination of GEO-ERA were established with GSAf (COGE Chair was designated - March 2011 - as Goodwill Ambassador of the Geological Society of Africa), the UNESCO Earth Science Education Initiative in Africa, AGID, CIFEG, NSF-Earth Science Literacy Initiative and UNCSTD. All their responses were positive (although UNESCO is particularly interested on cooperation regarding primary and secondary education). Further collaborations regarding the Roadmap are going on (but in a more preliminary stage), with NASA Astrobiology Institute Education and Public Outreach, Xsci-ESERC and Cosmos Education and, above all, AGN and AAWG (Gender dimension and Geoparks). As it was highlighted in the IUGS 61st Executive Committee Meeting and in the First International Conference on African and Arabian Geoparks “Geo-education in Africa - UNESCO & COGE intiatives - ” El Jadida (Morocco), these areas are privilege places where field geoscience educational activities can be pursued in the context of the GEO-ERA activities. As a first stage of this initiative, it is proposed the design, advertising and distribution of a questionnaire, containing: a) open-ended questions; b) closed-ended questions; c) contingency questions, and d) matrix questions, to be sent, with the collaboration of our partners, to the five African regions and all countries in order to define: 1) the main topics which should form part of the Roadmap and 2) a selected list of teachers and preliminary theoretical and practical (lab and field) activities. Finally, also regarding Africa, and following IUGS recommendations, COGE plans to collaborate in specific geoscience educational initiatives with SGA (African Metallogeny Courses).

IAGD - IUGS/COGE partnership and joint project

• A new collaboration between IAGD (International Advisory for Geoscience Diversity) and IUGS/COGE, regarding geoscience education, training and technology transfer, was recently (3 December 2011) proposed. It is especially related to students and professionals with disabilities worldwide. In a first stage, the collaboration would consist on developing instructional workshops especifically for faculty who may need assistance in modifying course materials to accommodate

students with various disabilities. The issue for most faculty members is that they are not adequately prepared to accommodate students with disabilities, and then are faced to attempt accommodation at the very last minute, when they arrive to their classes. The highlight of this particular workshop will be the instruction from actual students with disabilities in the presentation. The students will be there to discuss exactly what they need and how accommodations can be made to include them. It is planned to present it at the 2012 annual GSA meeting in Charlotte, NC, USA and also in the IGC (Brisbane, Australia; symposium 1.2. Geoscience education. Theme 1: Geoscience for Society). A more long-term idea might be to have a collaborative meeting, with the global research community, relative to access and inclusion in the geosciences, that also promotes current students and their efforts to complete geoscience coursework.

7 CHIEF ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2011

• COGE and the International Geoscience Education Organisation (IGEO) advertised and supported the International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) which has run successfully since 2007 and enters its fifth year, in Italy in September 2011.

• COGE has had a very active participation and leadership, in a close

partnership with AGID, in the development of Geoethics, and its links with geoscience education issues, taking part in the final edition (October 2011) of the International Declaration on Geoethics.

• COGE has established new contacts with AGID, GSAf, CIFEG, UNESCO

and other institutions (e.g. NSF-ESLI, UNCSTD, AGN, AAWG), mainly focused on the launch of an initiative related with geoscience education in Africa to establish a Roadmap (GEO-ERA: Geoscience Education Roadmap for Africa).

• COGE has established new contacts with IAGD, especially related to

students and professionals with disabilities worldwide regarding geoscience education, training and technology transfer.

• COGE has a new website, which is active since mid-February 2011

(www.iugscoge.com), which includes updated content, news, and links (e.g. to the NSF-Earth Science Literacy Initiative available in English and Spanish versions). The summary by month of some traffic parameters of the new website yields very positive results (average mean of 1,800 hits/month).

• COGE is planning to hold a business meeting in 2012 in Brisbane during

the 34th IGC.

• COGE has started to accomplish the Actions defined by the IUGS Ad Hoc Review (29 September 2011) (see Annex 1).

All these accomplishments, but the last one (for obvious reasons), were already recognized by the IUGS Ad Hoc Review Committee. 8. MAIN PRODUCTS IN 2011 Information of any type published in Episodes and/or in/through the IUGS website

• Martinez-Frias, J. (2011) IUGS/COGE: The significance of partnership, capacity building and a multidisciplinary approach in geosciences education. IUGS 50th Anniversary Event. Paris (France). http://www.iugscoge.com/pdf_files/IUGS_COGE_50th_Paris_JMFrias.pdf

• Martinez-Frias, J. (2011) International Declaration on Geoethics. AGID

WG of Geoethics, Pribram, Czech Republic, October 10-14, 2011. http://tierra.rediris.es/Geoethics_Planetary_Protection/AGID_Geoethics_International_Declaration.htm

• Martinez-Frias, J. (2011) IUGS-COGE and the significance of Geoparks in

Geosciences Education. In Errami, E. & Al-Aawah, M. (2011) First International Conference on African and Arabian Geoparks. El Jadida, Morocco, 21-28 November 2011, 145.

• Martínez-Frías, J., González, J.L. and Rull, F. (2011) Geoethics and

Deontology: From fundamentals to applications in Planetary Protection. Episodes 34-4: 257-262.

9. MAIN PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN 2011

• None – to my knowledge. 10. SUMMARY OF EXPENDITURES IN 2011

• $3473 received from IUGS. This is to cover charges from fy2011 and fy2012 through to this December.

• Website (Greg McNamara): $1672.27 • Phone charges (telecon): $106.73 • Total: $1779.00.

• $3473 - $1779 = $1694 remaining GSA does pay overhead on these funds (2011 - $214.44 and 2012 - $244.03 = $458.47); however, it was our understanding that GSA would cover all overhead related fees and would not charge those out to COGE.

11. WORK PLAN FOR NEXT YEAR

• COGE will continue accomplishing the Actions recommended by the Ad-hoc Review Committee (ARC) (see Annex 1).

• COGE will continue its well established and fruitful collaboration with

IGEO.

• COGE will continue its recent and fruitful collaboration with AGID on Geoethics and Geoscience Education.

• COGE will start its initiative: GEOscience Education Roadmap for Africa, GEO-

ERA, by the design, advertising and distribution of a questionnaire to be sent, with the collaboration of our partners, to the five African regions and all African countries.

• COGE will start a new IAGD - IUGS/COGE project, by developing an

instructional workshop especifically related to students and professionals with disabilities worldwide.

• COGE will have a significant role in the 34th IGC as main responsible for the

Symposium 1.2. Geoscience Education in the framework of Theme 1: Geoscience for Society.

• COGE members will meet in 2012 in Brisbane during the 34th IGC.

• COGE plans to attend/participate in the IUGS EC Meeting in San

Sebastian, Spain (February 14 – 17, 2012).

• COGE plans to participate in the Earth Science Education Event during the 40th Anniversary of IGCP (23 February 2012), in the framework of the “Update on UNESCO’s Earth Science Education in Africa” and in the Workshop on Earth Science Education globally.

What are the major issues facing the current leadership of the organization?

• To be able of benefiting from the skills and experiences of old and new COGE members, and from the past and present activities carried out by the Commission;

• To explore new ways for strengthening the Commission; • To launch new ideas and partnership initiatives; • To create new synergies on capacity building in primary, secondary and

teriary education; • To improve the COGE visibility and further international recognition; • To become, through our activities and projects, a reference on

geoscience education worldwide.

Planned publications in Episodes or through the IUGS website

• COGE plans to publish a profile article on the Commission in Episodes when the new strategic plan is approved in order to highlight new projects (ARC Action 12; see Annex 1).

• COGE, in collaboration with its partners, plan to publish a paper in

Episodes specifically related with GEO-ERA.

• COGE, in collaboration with IAGD, plan to publish a paper in Episodes specifically related with the results from the geoscience education instructional workshop devoted to students and professionals with disabilities worldwide.

• COGE plans to put in its website (and sharing in the IUGS website)

summaries, pictures, videos, etc., related with the GEO-ERA questionnaire and the IAGD-COGE workshop.

Planned participation in the next IGC

• As previous defined, COGE will have a significant role in the 34th IGC as

main responsible for the Symposium 1.2. Geoscience Education in the framework of Theme 1: Geoscience for Society. Two members of COGE (the current and the past Chairs of the commission), are involved in the symposium (Jesus Martinez-Frias, Convenor and Gary Lewis, co-Convenor). Likewise, Chris King (COGE Vice Chair) will contribute as co-Convenor in the Symposium 2.3. Developing geoscience education and awareness for the benefit of society in the context of the Theme 2: Geoscience Benefiting Low Income Countries. In this same theme 2, IUGS/COGE (Jesus Martinez-Frias) will take part as co-Convenor in the symposium 2.5. Geoethics (and potentially in the international workshop on Geoethics).

12. CRITICAL MILESTONES

• If a milestone is understood as the “end of a stage that marks the completion of a work package or phase”, then it is important to stress that the Ad-Hoc Review Committee gave COGE a vote of confidence (16 November 2011), supporting its continuity on the condition that a set of 13 action items (see Annex 1) should be performed. Their accomplishment is ongoing and, on 27 December 2011, it is already achieved in some of them: Actions 1, 4, 5, 9, 10 and 13. In addition, the ARC emphasized that “the weakness of the Commission is that there is no real project conducted by the Commission itself…”. Now, COGE is, besides continuing its successful partnership on classical and successful topics, also presenting two new projects: a) The GEO-ERA initiative, and

b) a pioneer project on geoscience education for students and professionals with disabilities worldwide.

13. ANTICIPATED RESULTS TO BE ACHIEVED FOR NEXT YEAR All those related with the working plan defined above (see point 11), having in mind as a main priority the accomplishment of the 13 Actions recommended by the Ad-hoc Review Committee (ARC) (see Annex 1). These anticipated results comprise: 1) procedural and working issues; 2) technical reports, congress contributions and publications; 3) public outreach activities; 4) implementation of new partnership actions and joint projects; 4) participation in workshops and international congresses. 14. BUDGET FOR 2012 IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education, Training and Technology Transfer Commission Work Plan and Budget 2012 Item Budget Website maintenance and further accomplishment of the ARC Actions. The Actions recommended by the Ad-Hoc Review Committee (Actions 1, 4, 7 and 11) require a higher work rate during the next year related with the website activity, which involves a slight increase of the budget devoted to the webmaster. (Greg McNamara)

$2400

Support current COGE-IGEO activities $1500 Start of the IUGS/COGE initiative (GEOscience Education Roadmap for Africa, GEO-ERA): Design, advertising and distribution of a questionnaire, containing a) open-ended questions; b) closed-ended questions; c) contingency questions, and d) matrix questions, to be sent, with the collaboration of our partners, to the five African regions and all countries in order to define: 1) the main topics which should form part of the Roadmap and 2) a selected list of teachers and preliminary theoretical and practical (lab and field) activities.

$1500

Start of the IAGD - IUGS/COGE project: develop of an instructional workshop specifically related to students and professionals with disabilities worldwide.

$1200

Minor administrative expenses (telecons, etc.) $350 Total $ 6,950 $1,694 remaining TOTAL (6,950 – 1,694) $ 5,256

Potential Funding Sources  

• Since its foundation, IUGS has been the only financial institution. As defined above (see point 5), the GSA covers some of the administrative costs and infrastructure (i.e. overhead) to manage the commission.

15. REVIEW CHIEF ACCOMPLISHMENTS OVER LAST FIVE YEARS (2007-2011) Besides the chief accomplishments defined above for 2011 (see point 7), the previous ones (2007-2010) are listed below as they appear collected by the IUGS Ad Hoc Review Committee (ARC) (see ARC report, pages 3 and 4): Until 2010, all projects were carried out jointly between IGEO and COGE. No concrete project has been implemented directly conducted by COGE on its own. It supported many individual initiatives such as Earth learning Ideas and has been involved in many projects conducted by other partner organization such as IGEO. COGE involvement in the global education survey was significant, but the survey results were not used for a project on-the-ground nor published for other partner organizations to utilize the data. More specifically, the following points are (*note that minor corrections are suggested for 3rd, 4th and 5th bullet points, see report on “Comments received from the Commission”).

• COGE supported the two GeoSciEd conferences organized by the International Geoscience Education Organisation (IGEO) that have taken place after its creation, GeoSciEd V in Bayreuth, Germany in 2006 and GeoSciEd VI in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2010.

• COGE and the IGEO advertised and supported the International Earth

Science Olympiad (IESO) which has run successfully since 2007 and enters its fifth year, in Italy in September 2011.

• COGE in partnership with IGEO undertook a global survey of Geoscience

Education status worldwide to obtain base data on the state of Education in as many counties as possible. As a result of the survery, it was planned to identify countries that would be most suitable for International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) education initiatives. The survey data was collected over a year’s period, collated, and presented as a summary as part of the 2007 COGE Annual Report (included in Appendix 2 below). Four countries were selected suitable for IYPE education projects on the basis of the survey data. A proposal was then submitted to IYPE Corp. for project funding but was unsuccessful due to IYPE Corp. lack of education project funds. COGE did not make additional efforts to find outside funding for the four projects. COGE operational funding from IUGS funded a masters student to collect, collate, and summarize the data from the survey during 2006 and 2007 (appoximate $2,000 USD). The education survey results were not

published in any IUGS publication nor have been used for other Commission projects/purposes to date.

• COGE supplied funding for the development of the Earth Learning Idea

website (approximately $1,000 USD). A report on the progress of Earth Learning Idea is in Appendix 4. The IUGS logo did not appear on the Earth Learning Idea website, only the IYPE logo was listed. It was discussed and agreed during the ARC review that the IUGS logo should appear on all initiatives undertaken by COGE and it partners, including IUGS since IUGS funds supported the project.

• COGE played a role in providing feedback/comments on the Earth

Science Literacy document produced by the USA National Science Foundation; considerable discussion took place within the Commission to identify how to use the document in order to help other countries improve Earth Science curriculum in schools. COGE translated the Earth Sciences Literacy into the Spanish language. There is currently no link to the Literacy document on the COGE website.

16. OBJECTIVES AND WORK PLAN FOR NEXT 5 YEARS (2012-2016)

• See specific report (Five-year Action Plan) 17. SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF IUGS ACTIVITIES, ESPECIALLY IN REFERENCE TO ACTIVITIES OF IUGS BODIES One of the aims of the IUGS is “to strengthen public awareness of geology and advance geological education in the widest sense” (http://www.iugs.org/). Considering this extremely important aspect, and given the fundamental and trans-disciplinary nature of geoscience education, it would be appropriate to articulate ways of transferring towards our Commission the know-how acquired from the ordinary and extraordinary activities of the IUGS scientific commissions, joint programs, task groups and initiatives. A brief (one or two pages) totorial report which were sent each year to COGE from the IUGS bodies would be greatly acknowledged, would be used to keep our commission updated with their advances (and housed in our website), also serving to enrich our ideas and activities. In this sense, COGE wants to remind that in its report of 2009 already invited any Commission who feels that they would add impact to their work by being in dialogue with COGE to contact the Chair.

18. COMMENTS

COGE agreed to nominate Professor Nir Orion (Israel) as a recipient of an IUGS Award for his outstanding contribution to our understanding of Geoscience education over many years.

Jesus Martinez-Frias COGE Chair

27 December 2011

Annex 1 Action Items Agreed During the ARC Review

1/ COGE should contact the IUGS Affiliates and the other IUGS Commissions to add the COGE website on their webpages; 2/ COGE should publish their activities/projects in Episodes; 3/ COGE should work on a unique logo of the commission; 4/ COGE should put a link on their webpage to the USA Earth Sciences Literacy document (also in Spanish); 5/ COGE should nominate/appoint a Vice Chair; 6/ COGE should encourage gender balance within the Commission membership; 7/ COGE should update, maintain and post the international geoscience education contacts list on their website (education experts by country); 8/ COGE should work toward adding additional Commission members with expertise in training and technology transfer; 9/ COGE should discuss and submit their future projects (including projected budget) to IUGS EC with their annual report by mid-January 2012; 10/ COGE should provide IUGS with a new strategic plan for the next 5 year with their 2011 annual report; 11/ COGE should post the 10 IYPE educational themed brochures on their website; 12/ COGE should publish a profile article on the Commission in Episodes when the new strategic plan is approved in order to highlight new projects; 13/ COGE should invite representatives from Africa on the Commission if it is to move ahead with a significant education project within Africa.