Welcome
Hello and welcome to the educators’ newsletter from the British Geological Survey. You are receiving this email as you expressed an interest in education or public engagement at BGS when you signed up for the main BGS corporate newsletter.
In order to continue receiving this new dedicated newsletter for educator's, please make sure to subscribe.
In this newsletter, we will keep you up to date with free learning resources from BGS’s Discovering Geology webpages on a range of curriculum-linked topics, summarise any new and relevant research done by BGS scientists for you, and share any education or public engagement news from BGS. We will also share other relevant news or opportunities from the earth science community.
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Educator Resources
Teacher CPD
BGS will be hosting a primary teacher CPD on December 12 from 10:30 to 15:30 at the Natural History Museum in London. This free session will feature exceptional geological and fossil specimens and help you expand your knowledge to engage your class using rocks and fossils with fun classroom activities. Register on Eventbrite here.
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Minecraft rock cycle map
We are releasing a new map on Minecraft Education, this time focussing on the rock cycle. This new way of looking at the rock cycle through exploration and play is ideal for engaging individual students in an interesting way allowing them to learn as they play. Find the map and instructions on how to play here.
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Schools Geology Challenge
The Schools Geology Challenge is a competition from the Geological Society where students showcase their interest in geology, learn more about the way geoscience impacts our lives, and put their teamwork and presentation skills to the test! Learn more here.
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Rock and fossil loan boxes
Our Rock and Fossil loan boxes have been very popular being sent out to many classes as school starts again. As part of our offer for learners, we have several loan kits that we can send out to your school or organisation for you to borrow for a period of two weeks. Each box comes with a wide variety of real rocks or fossils along with information about the specimens contained within. We are also developing a kit aimed at smaller home school groups covering rocks and fossils which should be available soon.
To borrow one of the kits, please email BGS Engage and give us some options for dates that you might like to have the box. We have a limited number of boxes so if they are proving popular we can’t guarantee the dates you ask for, but we will try our best!
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BGS Open Day 2024
BGS hosted its bi-annual Open Day on 8 June 2024, welcoming more than 1000 visitors to its headquarters in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire. This year’s BGS Open Day featured more than 25 hands-on activities, including landslide modelling and gold panning, as well as a wide range of demonstrations that were fun for the whole family.
The event, which was free to attend, also included a number of visitor tours, including the BGS Core Store, the largest core facility in the UK, a virtual reality tour of Great Britain in the 3D visualisation facility and a wilding tour around the campus grounds to see its wildflower meadows, bug hotels and pond.
Visitors also had the opportunity to meet and speak to BGS scientists, as well as take part in talks, demonstrations and a family quiz which took place throughout the day.
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BGS at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
BGS took part in the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in July, bringing the commoditree and critical mineral specimens to engage visitors. The central London location meant the exhibition was very busy with curious members of the public and we reached over 1300 people over the weekend through conversations, talks and specimen handling.
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BGS at Green Man Festival
The BGS Public Engagement team were at Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, Wales, for the Green Man Festival in August. Showing a range of specimens and cooperating with the Geological Society on family friendly engagement activities over 1200 visitors and school children engaged with us, learning more about critical minerals and careers in geology. Many questions were answered and much fun was had by all.
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Explore our planet- Archwiliwch ein planed, NERC showcase
BGS were at Techniquest in Cardiff taking part in the Explore our planet NERC showcase. We demonstrated landslides and boreholes to schools and families over the weekend of October 18th, reaching 400 school children and 1200 family visitors over the weekend. Care was taken on the sensitive subject of landslides in Wales and many good conversations were had on the subject. Children learned of the risks and how planning can help protect people as well as how boreholes are used to understand what is happening under our feet.
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