The newsletter highlights AGI news and upcoming events from across the
geoscience federation. Help us share important geoscience events by
contacting Geoff Camphire
Recognizing that geoscientists’ vital expertise can strengthen policy
making and that guidance must be framed in a way that policymakers can
use, dozens of geoscience leaders discussed a wide array of priorities -
and an innovative new compositional structure - for the upcoming
Critical Needs Document during the AGI Leadership Forum conducted
virtually on February 15, 2023.
Every four years, AGI’s Member Societies come together to develop a
shared statement on the critical needs for society that the geosciences
can directly address. This overview of critical issues and policy
recommendations, commonly known as the Critical Needs Document, is
provided to presidential campaigns, federal agencies, and key
congressional committees and members with related interests. Leadership
Forum participants discussed a new strategy to make the planned 2024
document more relevant than ever.
The 2024 Critical Needs Document will not - in the way that previous
iterations did - identify topics as typically articulated by
geoscientists, such as geologic hazards, energy, and water. Instead, the
document will frame issues in terms that Congress frequently addresses,
such as the economy, hazards and wellbeing, infrastructure, national
security, and innovation. Having pinpointed these key topics of policy,
the document will go on to explain how geoscience offers important
perspectives and solutions.
“Our current effort in preparing the Critical Needs Document will try
to weave the important role the geosciences play into general topical
areas that encompass the most common issues that are likely to be in the
focus of the executive branch and members of congress,” said AGI
Past-President David Wunsch, who chairs the document committee. “For
example, a major issue such as food security involves several facets of
the geosciences, such as soil science for understanding and conserving
agricultural soils, mineralogy for developing raw materials for
fertilizers such as potash, availability of water resources for
irrigation, and fuels for transporting food products. The key will be
identifying these facets of geoscience and incorporating them, and their
relevance, into a document that is both interesting and engaging to our
intended audience.”
“The geosciences play a foundational role in providing the materials to
meet the modern world’s needs, while also providing a critical
understanding of Earth’s systems to best manage and protect our
resources,” Wunsch added. “We currently have 18 members representing a
broad cross-section of AGI Member Societies on our committee, and we are
in the process of rolling up our sleeves and putting that brain trust to
work.” The committee is asking AGI Member Societies for case studies
illuminating real-world instances where geoscience has been brought to
bear effectively on such issues.
The Leadership Forum is an event hosted annually by AGI. Learn more
online about Collaborative Leadership in the AGI
Federation and
additional AGI membership benefits. To learn more about the 2024
Critical Needs Document, contact AGI Geoscience Profession and Higher
Education Director Christopher
Keane.
Early indications suggest that a free geoscience communication
course, first offered to
members of AGI Member
Societies by AGI
with generous support from the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists Foundation (AAPG-F) in March, is having an impact. So far,
more than 770 geoscientists from 26 societies have enrolled in the
Practical Communications
course presented by Geologize LTD, a
professional training provider endorsed by leading geoscience
organizations around the world.
“Effective communication of geoscience to the public, policymakers, and
stakeholders is vital to addressing societal issues,” AGI Executive
Director Jonathan Arthur said. “To tackle emerging challenges - whether
confronting misinformation, building public understanding, boosting
enrollments, or strengthening the professional workforce - we must equip
geoscientists to communicate efficiently and engagingly in a variety of
settings, including classrooms and social media.”
Practical Geocommunication prepares geoscientists at all career stages
to become compelling ambassadors for their field. The flexible,
on-demand format allows participants to progress at their own pace,
accessing lessons, quizzes, assignments, and having direct interaction
with the course instructor, Dr. Haydon Mort, CEO of Geologize LTD.
Successful completion of the course earns not only nine hours of
Continuing Professional Development but also a certificate of
completion.
“There is a strong need to share the ideas of the geosciences with the
general public in a simple way,” said Anmol Vishwakarma, an AAPG
member, on LinkedIn recently. “The course effectively addresses the
urgent need to share geoscience knowledge with the public in an easily
comprehensible way.”
“I highly recommend this course, as it reveals the flaws in
geoscience’s approach to [the] general public and consequentially
missed opportunities to communicate to non-experts properly,” said
Carson Rittel, a Geological Society of America member. “I … recommend
it to all geoscientists. Even more, to all scientists!”
AGI Member Societies are inviting their members to take advantage and
are seeing rapid results. When the Society of Exploration
Geophysicists invited members to participate, a
record-breaking 118 members signed up in less than 24 hours. Mort noted
that members from Africa are particularly grateful for the opportunity,
calling the AGI license a “powerful tool for access in many developing
countries.” Some AGI Member Societies, like the National Earth Science
Teachers Association, are considering
leveraging this free course, valued at $400, as an incentive to attract
new members. This free training opportunity is available free until
early 2024. AGI is distributing instructions to Member Societies. If you
are a member, expect to receive this information from your society. If
you have not yet received instructions, see the Practical
Geocommunication website to
locate your membership portal or an appropriate point of contact in your
society.
As communities worldwide strive to promote sustainability, geoscience
societies are looking to AGI to help them advance understanding and
action toward sustainable development. A partnership between The
Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and
AGI’s Education and Outreach Department, for example, has
collaboratively developed instructional materials highlighting
connections between SEG’s Geoscientists Without
Borders®"(GWB)
program and the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (UN SDGs). One item, a
poster,
illustrates how GWB projects around the world connect to UN SDGs for
clean water and sanitation, education, gender equity, and sustainable
communities. Another is designed to focus children’s attention on ways
that community members work together to support UN SDGs.
The UN SDGs are at the foundation of several of the projects that the
department has undertaken recently and was the focus of the theme for
Earth Science Week 2022, “Earth Science for a Sustainable World.” In
many instances, partner organizations have an interest in supporting
locally meaningful educational experiences around specific geoscience
topics for young people, their teachers, and members of the public. AGI
Education and Outreach staff work with those organizations to develop
and disseminate instructional resources on those topics, shaping them in
ways that align with instructional standards and practices, while also
making the underlying science accessible to learners.
“Because SEG recognizes the importance of spreading awareness of
geophysics career paths among students from an early age, we partnered
with AGI to promote geophysics education in K-12 education,” said GWB
Program Manager Pallavi Bharadwaj. “These posters, for instance, aid
teachers and students by offering ideas for classroom activities like
building models and asking questions to get involved in understanding
and solving some of the world’s biggest challenges. Through these
efforts, we are working to inspire the next generation of geophysicists
and promote the importance of geophysics in addressing global
challenges.”
“This partnership helps the GWB program to join our efforts and access
AGI’s wide network,” Bharadwaj added. “SEG and AGI are providing
valuable resources to teachers and students by developing activity
sheets, posters, webinars, and other educational materials. These
resources help introduce geoscience concepts and career paths to
students early, which can significantly impact their academic and career
trajectories.”
For another project focused on the SDGs, AGI education specialists
worked with SLB Excellence in Educational
Development
(SEED) to design four Next Generation (NextGen) SEEDKits, each with
activities that use hands-on, data-focused, project-based instructional
models. Those NextGen SEEDKits - which address UN SDGs for water,
energy, consumption and production, and climate action - are in initial
pilot testing phases in Ecuador, which has a thriving SEED program in
classrooms and extra-curricular settings, including several for which
AGI staff have provided on-site professional development workshops.
AGI is incorporating sustainability in additional projects and
initiatives including its “Strategy for the Future” 2023-2026 Vision
Statement and Strategic Plan, GeoRef, and the 2023 Earth Science Week
theme, “Geoscience Innovating for Earth and People.”
Learn more online about Earth Science Week and other programs of AGI
Education and Outreach.
To discuss how AGI can support your organization’s
sustainability-related education efforts, contact AGI Education and
Outreach Director Edward
Robeck. To learn more about
other AGI sustainability initiatives, contact Executive Director
Jonathan Arthur.
When the World Community of Geological
Surveys (WCOGS) set out to sponsor
online forums for leaders of national and regional Geological Survey
Organizations (GSOs) and regional geological associations spanning the
globe, WCOGS found a ready, willing, and able host for those events in
AGI. The Institute was a natural choice to host three international
webinar series in recent years, said Gill Jolly, Natural Hazards and
Risks Theme Leader of GNS Science in New Zealand. “For all three of
those series, we wanted to reach across time zones around the globe,
produce something that was very organized and professional, and create a
worthwhile experience for participants,” added Jolly, who served on the
organizing committee for one of the forums. “We had lots of confidence
that AGI could deliver what we needed.”
The most recent WCOGS webinar series, Disaster Risk Reduction: The Role
of Geological Survey Organizations in Understanding Risk and Informing
Risk Reduction
Actions,
was organized through a collaboration of WCOGS, the Global Earthquake
Model Foundation, the Geological Survey of Canada, and GNS Science.
Recognizing GSOs as vital to understanding geo-hazards and creating
disaster risk management policies and programs, the forum provided an
overview and three virtual workshops on the role of GSOs in disaster
risk reduction at the national level, including strategies, awareness,
advocacy, financial risk management, building codes, and early warning
systems. The webinar series was structured as a set of three regional
sessions, each featuring pre-recorded lectures by science policy experts
and geoscientists and a live moderated discussion with attendees. All
sessions were conducted in English with live captioning in French,
Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Modern Chinese, and Arabic.
WCOGS also sponsored two additional webinar forums hosted by AGI in the
past few years: Responding to Societal Needs With 3D Geology: An
International
Perspective
and Advances in Critical Mineral Research: A Forum in Memory of Victor
Labson.
AGI provided the expertise and skills needed to further WCOGS’s
objectives. “With the Disaster Risk Reduction series, for example, we
were aiming to share good practice globally and connect a community of
practice among the relevant organizations,” said Jolly. “In terms of
meeting our goal of building community of practice, we felt like that
event did a really great job. AGI offered experience, knowledge, and
advice. Another key component was the network that AGI has, a unique
ability to get the word out to engaged audiences internationally.”
In addition, the Geological Survey of Canada was pleased with AGI’s
professionalism in hosting the disaster risk reduction sessions, said
Director Sonia Talwar. She especially noted that AGI ensured the
pre-recorded videos were made available post-event via YouTube to
promote broad reach of the content.
“We’d like to maintain the momentum we’ve built up,” added WCOGS’s
Jolly. “One of the key outcomes has been the connections we’ve seen
among countries with shared experiences. Often people are willing to
share the good stories but not the stories about challenges they faced,
and we heard both. There have been some great, open conversations among
diverse groups of participants — from a mix of developed and
developing countries, and including indigenous peoples — about
important topics like funding, strategies, and solutions. So we’re keen
to build on the success of these webinar series, maybe with more
targeted webinars.”
To learn more about AGI-produced webinars, contact AGI Geoscience
Profession and Higher Education Director Christopher
Keane.
GeoRef Thesaurus Aids in Choosing, Using Terms
When geoscientists need to be sure they are communicating ideas and
information in the most precise, effective language, many rely on
guidance readily available through AGI’s GeoRef
Thesaurus.
The online resource is widely used for efficient searching of
GeoRef, the
premier bibliographic database for the Earth sciences. The Thesaurus,
which features more than 33,700 controlled vocabulary terms and the
complete GeoRef indexing structure, enables users to use terms
correctly, understand their scientific context, and find relevant
research online.
A longtime user of the Thesaurus is Steven Shirey, senior staff
scientist in geochemistry at the Carnegie Institution for
Science’s Earth and Planets Laboratory,
who says he values the “completeness” of scholarly coverage offered by
the Thesaurus. “When you want to get a complete look at where an idea
started or make sure the literature is complete, you need to go back
further than common resources such as Google Scholar, which can miss
things,” says Shirey. “GeoRef is complete.”
Shirey says he uses the Thesaurus to construct a collection of
references of his own that might become the source for endnotes in a
paper. “I do a lot of research on natural diamonds,” says the isotope
geochemist. “If you look up ‘diamond,’ you can get about 11,000
references in total. When I’m writing a paper on a specific idea
related to diamonds, I like that I can search to find the earliest
references that will allow me to understand the beginning of a concept.
This is impossible to do with Google Scholar.”
First published in 1978, the Thesaurus has gone through numerous
editions and transformations. The current online format is divided into
three parts. Some users may wish to start with the GeoRef Thesaurus
Introduction,
which explains the resource’s history and how it works. GeoRef
Thesaurus
Lists,
providing information on the classification schemes used in GeoRef’s
controlled vocabulary, include age dating methods, commodities, geologic
age terms, fossils, meteorites, sedimentary structures, minerals, soils,
various types of rocks, and more. Most lists are organized both
alphabetically and hierarchically for easy browsing. GeoRef Search
Platforms
offer access to Thesaurus term information available to GeoRef
subscribers. The controlled vocabulary is updated annually.
In the current atmosphere of online searches, “artificial
intelligence,” and social media, Shirey worries there may be a danger
of people, including researchers, losing the capacity to evaluate the
veracity of information. “Having a source that you can trust to cover
the waterfront is incredibly valuable,” he says. “That’s what I use
the GeoRef Thesaurus for.”
Learn more online about AGI’s GeoRef
Thesaurus
and additional programs of AGI Scholarly
Information. For more
information, contact AGI’s Acting Director of Scholarly Information,
Tia Colvin.
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