AUGEN: SEEING THE FUTURE OF AUSTRALASIAN GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

The nascent Australasian Universities Geoscience Educators Network (AUGEN) banded together under the auspices of providing support and feedback for otherwise isolated geoscience education ‘champions’ within Australia’s major universities in 2012. AUGEN’s primary directives are to provide a communication channel between geoscience academics across Australia and New Zealand and share ideas about teaching tertiary level geosciences. The network facilitates collaborative geoscience education research projects and sharing of curriculum, classroom, field, and digital teaching strategies, assessment methods and materials.

AUGEN is in its organisational infancy as a peer group for improving the quality of geoscience education and engagement and as a community of inquiry and educational research. Part of the growth plan is to solidify the position of AUGEN within the larger Australasian geoscience community and become a representative voice in the higher education sector. To achieve these aims, the network is looking internationally to more mature tertiary geoscience education networks for evidence of best practices and potential research and curriculum development collaborations.