We are excited to celebrate one year of our partnership with Australian Earth Science Education (AusEarthEd), supporting thousands of students and teachers with Earth and Environmental Science (EES) education in New South Wales (NSW) for the first time.
AusEarthEd commenced working with schools to deliver free local, contextual resources, educator training and mentoring, and student incursions.
In what was a challenging year for the sector, and Australia, the program saw 127 new teaching and learning resources developed, including gold industry member case studies, 595 teachers trained and mentored, and 1,568 students participated in the online and in-class incursions. The incursions sparked interest in careers in the gold industry, with more than 60 per cent eager to explore.
“This is an incredible opportunity to support and engage both teachers and students during difficult times,” said AusEarthEd CEO Jo Watkins.
“Thanks to our partnership with the Gold Industry Group we are able to produce curriculum-based resources with real industry context, as well as authentic experiences for EES classes across NSW.”
Our National Gold Education Program also thrived through the partnership, as our Gold Resources Kits were a prominent feature in the incursions and teacher professional learning sessions and this led to New South Wales ordering the most Gold Resources Kits of all the States and Territories.
AusEarthEd Education Officer Susan Filan ran the incursions throughout New South Wales (in-class and online) and received fantastic feedback, with teachers sharing the Program with other schools in New South Wales.
“I think the lessons were very, very good, the students are academically weak so despite being taught have little recall. Susan was able to simplify major concepts and ideas in an hour. I cannot recommend her highly enough. I have forwarded AusEarthEd details to two teachers in other schools I was that impressed!” a local teacher commented.
With continuing restrictions limiting excursions, half-day mining incursions were developed for both Year 11 and 12 students and proved to be popular. These three-hour incursions provided students with the opportunity to engage in hands-on, curriculum-linked activities based on the industry. Ms Filan also helped students to revise and prepare for exams during one-hour online sessions.
“The students were completely engaged and were blown away with Susan’s knowledge and her help, in preparation for their upcoming HSC exam,” a local teacher said.
97% of teachers noted a significant change in student knowledge of the content covered following the incursions.