Dear Geoscience Colleagues,

The highly successful Teacher Earth Science Education Programme (TESEP) is seeking your assistance.

We are collaborating with Earth Science Western Australia (ESWA) to produce case studies that complement their fantastic Earth and Environmental Science (EES) text book.

By updating with Australia-wide examples, the book will more effectively help all Australian teachers when the new Australian Curriculum EES course for years 11-12 is rolled out in the next couple of years. TESEP is encouraging nation-wide adoption of this text and by providing additional complementary case studies we are helping to ensure it is of maximum use across the country.

The book has 19 chapters and we are looking for excellent Australian examples for many areas of text. Each case study will consist of 2 to 6 pages, including research, diagrams, maps and activities. The chapters address minerals, fossils, geological time, plate tectonics, geohazards, energy, resources and the 3 rock types but also embrace soils, water, weather, climate change, human activity, ecosystems and biodiversity. A complete overview is available on the TESEP website: www.tesep.org.au/casestudies.html 

However, we are not seeking to rewrite the curriculum! You may think there are sections of the book missing but it is written to meet the WA EES curriculum requirements. It will also be revised to meet the national EES curriculum even better in due course but either way it will not cover all possible content. Consequently, if you think you have material that does not fit the chapter headings do not be discouraged. The content touched upon under those headings is wide ranging and many less obvious connections can be made as a result.

I will be personally contacting those in the geoscience community I know that may be able to provide or easily develop some of the material required but I encourage one and all to help.

If you have anything of your own or are aware of materials that might suit our needs please contact me as soon as possible. Obviously, we need to be sure that there are no copyright restrictions on the materials you provide, but even if you just have one classic photo of a particular geological phenomenon that you are willing to send, the Australian teaching fraternity and all future students will be very grateful and your contribution will be acknowledged.

Needless to say, in order to ensure national appeal the case studies will need to have national geographic spread. This means we may have the unenviable task of choosing some over others for the first batch of case studies that we hope to have finalised by October 2013. However, since they are likely to be delivered on-line we should be able to continually add them to the ESWA and TESEP websites as they are written up and inform teachers by email and newsletters.

Greg McNamara is Executive Officer of the Teacher Earth Science Education Programme. Email: eo@tesep.org.au 

29 March 2013