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• September London Lecture Review
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President’s Page- Steve Garrett

PESGB has an aim to help support earth science teaching in schools consistent with our objective ‘to promote, for the public benefit, education in the scientific and technical aspects of petroleum exploration’. This builds on growing PESGB success in post-graduate MSc funding, Young Professionals events, the North Sea course, field trips, the recent geophysics conference – just some of the ways in which PESGB supports life-long learning in our profession. The first challenge in moving into the area of school education reflects the bewildering number of entities (and acronyms). These include the Committee of Heads of Earth Science Departments (CHUGD), the Geological Society of London Education Committee and Officers, the Scottish Earth Science Education Forum (SESEF), the Earth Science Education Forum (ESEF) of England and Wales, the Earth Science Teachers’ Association (ESTA), OPITO who represent the skills needs of the industry, and various entities promoting Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) subject such as the Smallpiece Trust. Teacher training for geology teachers has been provided by Keele University and enabled by the Earth Science Education Unit (ESEU) which has been supported by Oil and Gas UK (which used to be UKOOA) for the past 10 years. ESEU took the lead in pulling together diverse stakeholders at key meetings in London in May and June 2011. These meetings addressed the risks to the future of geology teaching in UK schools – a threat identified by 2010 PESGB President Henry Allen in his July 2010 President’s Page.
PESGB Council believe that our Society can be a key player in future progress. We are fortunate to have an Executive Director, Guy Elliott, who has experience in school education, contributed to the ESEU stakeholder meetings in London this year, and has demonstrated strong partnership behaviours with key players such as the Geological Society of London Education Officers. PESGB can provide funding in support of our charitable objectives, including support for the annual ESTA conference. The PESGB Newsletter and digital communications can provide a way to link up our members more directly in support of education. PESGB members love to lead field trips or visit schools to communicate our enthusiasm and knowledge, and we would look to harness this energy in structured way in support of teachers to have sustained impact at a national scale, rather than just in Southeast England or Northeast Scotland where major groupings of PESGB membership occur.
PESGB will be taking a small next step together with the Petroleum Group and staff of the Geological Society by launching a poster competition for schools on the ‘Story of Oil’ as part of Earth Science Week 9-15 October this year http://www.earthsciweek. org/index.html . This will help to build trust and partnership with a key organisation while we continue to build, through dialogue, relationships with the other entities involved in school education of our next generation of petroleum explorers, field developers, and carbon storers.