PROMOTION OF MINERALOGICAL AND GEOLOGICAL TOPICS IN SCHOOL EDUCATION

Apart from geography the geosciences are not subjects of German school education. Even in geography or natural science classes geoscience topics are rare, and teachers are mostly poorly skilled in modern geosciences. Additional problems arise from school literature that is full of outdated or even wrong information. This generally leads to an under-education of German scholars in geosciences, which is fatal regarding our current and future problems of natural hazards, mineral resources (incl. water) and energy, for example.

One way of transporting geoscience knowledge into school education is the introduction of special activities offered by geoscientists from research institutes, science centres and natural history museums. There are many examples of successful projects in Germany comprising field trips, summer schools, school labs, mobile labs etc. The Natural History Museum of Berlin (MfN) offers various projects at their school lab called “Carl Zeiss Microscopy Center”. Scholars have the opportunity to explore the world of rocks, minerals, meteorites, and ores using different microscopes and tool boxes that cover subjects on the complexity, genesis and use of these natural materials. The projects are completed with tours to labs and collections. The involvement of “real” scientists and the close cooperation between scientists and teachers take part in the success of these school projects at the MfN.

However, the number of scholars that may take profit from all these off-school projects is fairly limited. Another issue should be a direct promotion of mineralogical and geological topics in regular school education. There are numerous possibilities to implement mineralogical and/or geological topics in subjects like general science, geography, chemistry, physics, and biology. The commission on geoscience education of the German Mineralogical Society (DMG) is currently running a new project to promote mineralogical and geological topics in school education. Examples will be discussed and cooperation between geoscience organisations is encouraged.