The EGU is seeking to appoint geoscience education field officers to represent the EGU in countries across Europe. The major role of the field officers will be to provide professional development through interactive workshops for school teachers who have elements of geoscience in their teaching curriculum. These positions are unpaid, but expenses are provided.

To build upon the success of last year’s programme, the EGU is expanding this educational initiative to more European countries. The three Field Officers to be appointed this year will join the Field Officers from France, Italy, Portugal and Spain appointed and trained last year and the Field Officer from Germany appointed this year.

Individuals appointed will ideally:

• be willing to represent EGU amongst geoscience teachers and educators in their own country;
• be willing to liaise with a small group of EGU-recognised supporters in their own country;
• be fully available for work, and so are unlikely to have a full-time position;
• hold a university degree containing at least 40% broad geoscience;
• have broad experience in teaching geology, science or geography;
• be willing to respond to new teaching ideas and approaches;
• be willing to seek out and travel to conferences of school teachers of geography, science or primary-age pupils in their country and region in order to present (in their own language) EGU interactive workshops to the conference participants;
• be willing to undertake an expenses-paid, two-day training programme in presenting interactive workshops; training will be by experienced trainers with expertise in presenting curriculum-focussed interactive professional development workshops in many countries – the training will be linked with the EGU General Assembly, which takes place in Vienna, Austria in May this year;
• be willing, with guidance, to formulate EGU interactive workshops appropriate for the curriculum in their own countries (with or without translation from English);
• be willing to attend an expenses-paid annual meeting of EGU Geoscience Education Field Officers (linked with the EGU General Assembly) and provide a brief report on their activities;
• be willing to purchase locally all the apparatus and materials needed to support and maintain the workshops (expenses can be reclaimed);
• be willing to collect evaluation data from each workshop presented and to provide simple analyses of the data.

Application is by sending a motivation letter (occupying no more than a single A4 page) and a curriculum vitae (CV) to the EGU Education Committee Chair, Chris King, at: education@egu.eu. The motivation letter should refer to the motivation of the individual applying, the state of geoscience education in their country, and how the provision of interactive workshops to teachers is likely to have an impact. The deadline is 2 December 2019.

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is Europe’s premier geosciences union, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the Earth, planetary, and space sciences for the benefit of humanity, worldwide. It is a non-profit interdisciplinary learned association of scientists founded in 2002 with headquarters in Munich, Germany. The EGU publishes a number of diverse scientific journals that use an innovative open access format and organises topical meetings plus education and outreach activities. Its annual General Assembly is the largest and most prominent European geosciences event, attracting more than 14,000 scientists from all over the world. The meeting’s sessions cover a wide range of topics, including volcanology, planetary exploration, the Earth’s internal structure and atmosphere, climate, energy, and resources. The EGU 2020 General Assembly is taking place in Vienna, Austria, from 3 to 8 May 2020.

• Current EGU geoscience education field officers