The Teacher Earth Science Education Programme started in 2007

TESEP's professional development workshops, entitled The Challenging Earth, came out of meetings of like-minded professional geoscientists and geoscience educators in 2007.
The meetings were held after Chairperson, Jill Stevens, and inaugural Executive Officer, Greg McNamara (now retired), worked on a PESA education project together and realised through discussions together that Australian teachers were loosing access to quality geoscience PD as other Australian-based programs were coming to an end.

Jill's driver and energy for the project saw it rapidly develop from an idea to a realistic possibility, gathering support from a wide range of funding partners and the Australian Science Teachers Association.

A survey of a sample group of Australian teachers, conducted by Len Altman, allowed TESEP to draw up plans for eight PD that met the needs of teachers.

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The first TESEP workshop was held at Biloela in Queensland in  July 2008.

The first eight workshops to be rolled out were:

  • PD1: Round and Round with Rocks
    (The rock cycle, ore bodies and crustal geology)
    PD2: Riding the Climate Roller Coaster
    (The geological history and drivers of climate change)
    PD3: Greening coal
    (carbon sequestration)
    PD4: Fossil sunlight
    (the hydrocarbon story)
    PD5: Wet rocks
    (ground water)
  • PD6: Hot rocks
    (geothermal energy)
  • PD7: Our Place in Space
    (Astronomy for the curriculum)
  • PD8: Powerful stuff
    (the energy debate)

In 2013, in response to the new Australia Curriculum document, that brough back Plate Tectonics into science, TESEP developed

  • PD9: Plate Tectonics
    (the reason for the Challenging Earth)

With technology now facilitating more virtual realisty experiences TESEP partnered with AUSGEOL.ORG in 2016 to encourage development of on-line 3D resources for use in schools. This has resulted in the 2017 development of

  • PD10: 3D geological visualisations
    (technology that enables teachers and students to access 3D imagery of geological features)

 

TESEP is always looking for new an innovative ways to bring geoscience alive in the classroom and enable teachers to do this confidently and professionally. Contact us if you have idea for doing just this!