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White Paper Consultation

The IUGS White Paper on Geoscience Education is a strategic initiative developed by the IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education (COGE) through collaboration with its global network of educators, researchers, and practitioners.

IUGS White Paper on Geoscience Education

Overview

The IUGS White Paper on Geoscience Education is a strategic initiative developed by the IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education (COGE) through collaboration with its global network of educators, researchers, and practitioners.

The document aims to contribute to address the critical role of geoscience education in responding to global challenges including climate change, natural hazard risk, resource sustainability, and environmental justice, while identifying structural barriers and opportunities for strengthening geoscience education systems worldwide.

Following an extensive internal review process within COGE, the current draft is now being opened for global stakeholder consultation. This consultation phase is designed to ensure broad international participation and to strengthen the scientific, educational, and policy relevance of the final document.

Consultation Purpose

This consultation invites feedback from the global geoscience education community in order to:

  • Strengthen the evidence base and global relevance of the White Paper
  • Identify regional perspectives and implementation challenges
  • Enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion dimensions
  • Refine strategic recommendations for geoscience education systems
  • Build broad international consensus prior to final publication

Executive Summary

Geoscience education stands at a critical juncture. As climate change, natural hazard risk, critical mineral demand, and environmental justice concerns intensify worldwide, societies’ capacity to respond depends heavily on how well Earth science is understood, taught, and valued. Yet across much of the globe, geoscience remains marginalised in school curricula, underrepresented in teacher training, and disconnected from the policy processes that most need its insights.

This White Paper, developed by the IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education (COGE) with the support of key collaborators, outlines the structural barriers limiting progress, including curricular marginalisation, teacher training gaps, fragmented initiatives, weak policy integration, and persistent equity, diversity and inclusion challenges, while also highlighting ongoing efforts and partnerships with UNESCO, EGU, and IGEO.

The current draft has been refined through COGE’s internal consultation process and is now being shared with the wider geoscience education community ahead of GeoSciEd X. The intention is to support structured discussion and feedback, building broad consensus around its findings and strategic recommendations before finalisation and official publication.

Key Messages Overview

  • Geoscience literacy is foundational, essential for addressing climate change, disaster risk, water security, and critical mineral governance.
  • The Global South faces both higher exposure and lower systemic capacity in geoscience education and resilience-building.
  • Sustainable transformation requires long-term investment in curricula, teacher training, and institutional recognition of outreach work.
  • Equity, diversity and inclusion, including Indigenous knowledge systems, are structural enablers of effective global geoscience capacity.
  • This is a living community document, now open for discussion at GeoSciEd X to build global consensus.

We warmly invites the global geoscience education community to participate in this consultation process and contribute to shaping a shared, inclusive, and forward-looking vision for geoscience education worldwide.

Feedback Mechanism

Stakeholders are invited to provide structured feedback via the online consultation form. Feedback will be reviewed by the COGE White Paper Editorial Team and integrated into the next revision cycle prior to submission to Episodes.

Consultation Materials

White Paper Draft (Version for Consultation)

Consultation Feedback Form

Consultation Period

The consultation will remain open until the conclusion of GeoSciEd X (Adelaide, Australia August 2026). All contributions received within this period will be reviewed, synthesised, and incorporated into the final revision of the document.

After this date, the consultation phase will be formally closed and no further structured feedback will be collected.

The final version will then be submitted to Episodes for peer-reviewed publication.

GeoSciEd X Integration

A dedicated discussion of the White Paper will take place during GeoSciEd X (Adelaide, August 2026) as part of the Big Ideas Day programme.

This session will serve as a global forum for dialogue, critique, and co-development of the White Paper recommendations, ensuring alignment between conference outcomes and the final version of the document.

Participants will be encouraged to engage directly with the draft via the consultation materials provided above.

Governance and Status

This document is an open consultation draft developed under the auspices of the IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education (COGE).

It does not represent a final position of IUGS or COGE and is subject to revision based on stakeholder input received during the consultation period.