TAKING EARTH SCIENCE EDUCATION TO SCIENCE TEACHERS – ESEU, THE FIRST TEN YEARS

The Earth Science Education Unit (ESEU) was first formed in 1999 and was progressively rolled out across the UK. The initial target group was secondary (high school) practising and trainee (pre-service) science teachers in England and Wales. Since 2003, ESEU has been presenting workshops in Scotland, and from 2008, workshops to primary (elementary) teachers and trainees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. By the end of the 2011 academic year, the ESEU will have presented more than 1,400 workshops, through visits to over 440 schools and 500 teacher training institutions, to more than 19,500 individuals.

ESEU’s success can probably be attributed to the following features:

• initial research showed a real need for presenting science teachers with methods of teaching Earth science in interactive and motivating ways;
• establishing the Earth Science Education Unit at Keele University, with the university providing facilities, the oil and gas industry providing funding (UKOOA, later Oil and Gas UK, has provided more than £1,500,000 – US$ 2.5M so far), and materials and expertise provided by the Earth Science Teachers’ Association (ESTA);
• the workshops are designed to be hands on and interactive, use inquiry-based methods aimed at developing thinking and investigational skills, and are focussed directly on the Earth science content of the science national curriculum in the different UK countries;
• workshops are only 90 minutes to 2 hours in duration, and are updated regularly in response to curriculum changes;
• they are presented by a network of facilitators across the UK all of whom have geology qualifications, have been appointed and trained, and meet annually to network and update their skills;
• facilitators take the workshops out to the schools and teacher training institutions;
• all workshops are evaluated, on a 1 – 5 Likert scale (1 = high), giving mean figures of between 1.40 and 1.84 for effectiveness, interest, relevance and value across all the programmes over all years;
• every school which received a workshop in 2003/4 was contacted a year later, to assess the impact of the workshop; every school which responded (33% response rate) had changed its teaching scheme to include ESEU activities;
• follow up research after 2008/9 showed impact almost as good;
• funding has recently been received to continue ESEU activities.