Educational Activities of the European Geosciences Union

The Committee on Education of the European Geosciences Union has been created in 2002 and is now composed by 13 members from France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden. One of the first activities of the CE has been the organization of workshops for secondary school teachers to be held during the annual General Assembly of EGU. Inspired by the AGU GIFT workshops, the EGU workshops differ from the American ones on their international aspect: - First, the audience (about 50 teachers) is entirely international, composed of teachers from all over Europe and not limited to teachers from the geographical area around Nice, where the two first workshops were held. - Second, the program of the workshops have been constructed to give the teachers not only an opportunity to upgrade their knowledge in important scientific topics, but also to exchange information with colleagues about the different school programs in different European countries. In 2004, for instance, the general theme of the 2-days workshop was "The Ocean" and the program consisted of a mixture of topical talks by leading scientists in the field (2/3 of the time) and informal talks/program presentations by the teachers themselves and the science educators present at the workshop (1/3 of the time), resulting in lively exchanges and future collaborations between teachers. Different aspects of this workshop will be described as well as other present and future activities of the Committee on Education of the EGU.