ESS Educators Professional Network

Saving Earth Sciences

Earth and Space Science (ESS) education in Aotearoa is at a critical crossroads, and we need your expertise to help shape its future.

Our ākonga live on the dynamic edge of the Pacific Rim, witnessing active tectonics, rising sea levels, and extreme weather firsthand. New Zealand’s unique climate, marine, and astronomical phenomena make it the ultimate living laboratory. ESS education sits perfectly at the intersection of academic rigor and real-world relevance, reducing climate anxiety by empowering young people with the agency to build community resilience.

However, geoscience faces a severe enrolment decline driven by three major hurdles: an image problem (seen as just rocks and mining rather than sustainable resource management), an identity problem (its multidisciplinary nature confuses students and the public), and a societal disconnect regarding resource origin and environmental risk.

As ESS teachers, we are uniquely positioned to change this narrative by creating innovative, real-world learning contexts and highlighting viable career pathways. But we cannot do it alone. ESSENZ is calling on New Zealand’s geoscience organisations, universities, and Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) to partner with us. By building strong networks between secondary educators, tertiary sectors, and industry, we can co-create engaging content, bridge the gap between school and career, and inspire the next generation of geoscience specialists.

Explore our projects below to see how your organisation can support this vital mission.

Huge thanks to our conference keynote speakers

Mark Rocket

Dr Marshall Palmer

Prof Dave Frame

Alan Gilmore

Projects that need your support

International Earth Sciences Olympiad

https://www.ieso2026-to.com/

New Zealand has had recent success in sending students to a range of international olympiads, where our best students compete against other countries. We didn’t manage to get a team to Turin this year, but we are aiming to send a team next year. We can’t do it alone, we need to:

Establish a leadership committee of about five people
We need tertiary support to help with tutorials once the team has been selected
Sponsorship to help cover the ~$20,000 travel and entry costs, to ensure that the opportunity is available to all students, not just those who can afford it.

An Earth Science Olympiad team would provide a powerful way of raising the profile of ESS and demonstrating to students that Earth Science is a discipline in which New Zealand can compete internationally. Our key contact for this project is Erin Nolan (erin.nolan@whs.co.nz).

Careers Campaign

ESSENZ is working towards producing a highly engaging social media campaign involving 10-12 geoscience career profiles in short format videos and accompanying posters. The videos are aimed at students and teachers to raise awareness of the geoscience career pathways, which are currently experiencing a critical shortage.

We are seeking a creative, scientifically literate postgraduate student or recent alumnus in Science Communication to develop, shoot, and package a high-impact social media campaign. The objective of this campaign is to showcase the diverse, lucrative, and vital career pathways available within the geosciences to the next generation of Kiwi talent.

We are also seeking organisations to support the project in both management and financial support.

Supporting and Upskilling Teachers

ESSENZ is building the capability and confidence of teachers of ESS. There are relatively few teachers who specialise in Earth and Space Science, and many teachers have limited opportunities to connect with practising scientists, university academics and industry professionals. We therefore want to develop a network, revenue streams and partnerships that can help teachers attend conferences, workshops and professional learning opportunities, while also creating opportunities for them to connect directly with the wider ESS community.

Wherever you are in the country, we will be able to put you in touch with schools and teachers. However, these opportunities work best when they are closely aligned with the curriculum, and we can help develop initiatives that work well for both organisations.

Building Networks

ESSENZ is working through the process of developing formal relationships with the Geoscience Society and the Royal Astronomical Society.

We hope to become more involved with their committees so that we can share ideas, information and work together closely on education and outrach projects.

Earthfest

Earth and Space Science Educators of New Zealand (ESSENZ) is actively collaborating with EarthFest to promote geoscience education, career pathways, and curriculum-aligned resources across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Curriculum Progress

We have made good inroads in developing an engaging senior subject aligned with the new secondary school qualification. This should be published before the end of October. You may be aware that the science curriculum covering Years 1-10 has recently been released. ESSENZ tried hard to be a part of the writing process but we were denied by the Ministry of Education at every stage. Unfortunately, this has led to ESS being minimised relative to the 2007 curriculum and comparable international curricula. We have engaged with the Ministry of Education for a justification and continue to advocate for adequate Earth & Space Science in the curriculum.

Dr Shaun Eaves

Many thanks to Shaun at Victoria Univerity Wellington who has helped ESSENZ to access climate data and produce awesome teaching resources. These take advantage of tools like Climate Reanalyzer and enable students to investigate climate patterns like SAM and ENSO. He has also produced an awesome website.

Dr Yvette Perrot

A big shout out to Yvette also at Victoria Univerity Wellington who has been helping us to integrate maths into astronomy and ran a webinar through our network to support teachers in astronomy. She has also help produce some teaching resources that will enable teachers to engage with the new Phase 5 curriculum.

Prof. James Renwick

Huge thanks also to James, who presented a webinar on the Southern Annular Mode and El Nino Southern Oscillation. Level 3 teachers needed support after these climate patterns were added to the Atmospheres standard for the first time in 2026.

Creating a more connected community

More broadly, we are looking at ways to streamline how schools, universities, industry and the subject association connect with one another. There are many people around New Zealand doing excellent work in Earth and Space Science education and outreach, but the connections between us are not always obvious. ESSENZ can provide a centralised point of contact through which universities and industry can connect with teachers and lecturers around the country, through which schools can access expertise, resources, speakers, career information and opportunities for students.

A whakataukī that captures what we are trying to achieve is:

He waka eke noa – We are all in this together.

We believe that the Earth Sciences are some of the most important areas of science for our Akonga to learn about, so we can meet the many environmental challenges facing us. The solution is to increase engagement with ESS, the number of students choosing ESS at school, progressing into tertiary study and ultimately entering the New Zealand workforce. We need to build the pathway together.

We understand that we all have busy schedules and this is on top of our day-to-day commitments. However, we would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on how your organisation could contribute to this work, whether through expertise, resources, mentoring, professional learning, student opportunities, sponsorship or simply helping us connect the right people.

Please reach out to Justin and Jim to be involved.

Progress Since Tauranga

One of the useful outcomes from our discussions at the ESSENZ 2025 Conference in Tauranga was hearing directly from tertiary and industry representatives about some of the barriers they see in the current ESS pathway, particularly around student confidence and capability in mathematics.

In response, ESSENZ has been working to address some of these issues:

Mathematics in ESS: Mathematics has now been explicitly embedded within the new senior ESS curriculum, helping to strengthen the mathematical component of the subject and better prepare students for tertiary study.
Geoscience data: We are developing professional learning and resources around the use of geoscience data, including climate-related resources being developed with Shaun Eaves from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
Mathematics in Astronomy: We are also developing resources and professional learning around mathematics in astronomy with Yvette Perrott from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
EarthFest: EarthFest is keen to explore the development of a national roadshow showcasing the geoscience kaupapa, which could provide an excellent way of bringing current science, scientists and career pathways directly into schools.

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