Introduction to GIFT

The EGU Committee on Education has organised Geosciences Information for Teachers (GIFT) workshops since 2003. These are two-and-a-half-day teacher enhancement workshops held in conjunction with EGU's annual General Assembly. There, selected top-level scientists working in the Earth sciences offer the invited teachers talks centred on a different theme every year.

The main objective of the GIFT workshops is to spread first-hand scientific information to science teachers of primary and secondary schools, significantly shortening the time between discovery and textbook, and to provide the teachers with material that can be directly transported to the classroom. In addition, the full immersion of science teachers in a truly scientific context (the annual EGU General Assembly) and the direct contact with world leading geoscientists are expected to stimulate curiosity towards scientific research that the teachers then transmit to their pupils.

The EGU Geosciences Information for Teachers (GIFT) programme offers teachers of primary school to high school the opportunity to upgrade their knowledge in geoscience themes and to shorten the time between new discoveries and textbook information.

The programme includes three different activities:

• The GIFT workshop

  Organised at each EGU General Assembly, this symposium combines presentations on current research by leading scientists with hands-on activities presented by science educators for about 100 invited teachers.

• The Autumn meeting

  Organised over a long weekend, this workshop brings together representatives of the European funded and the international science and education programmes on selected topics to prepare the next EGU GIFT symposia.

• The GIFT home site

  Organised as an open platform for all national, European or international science and education programmes, scientists interested in sharing their results with educators, and teachers interested in bringing the geosciences into their classrooms.