Geosciences are essential for managing mineral, energy, and water resources; developing infrastructure; mitigating natural hazards; and understanding climate systems. Despite their foundational importance to economic prosperity and planetary stewardship, most people lack geoscience literacy, hindering informed decision-making on critical issues.

Supporting geoscience-literate societies requires three components: teachers with deep geoscience knowledge, education research supporting instructional improvement, and leaders who prioritize geoscience education through adequate resources and time allocation. Geoscience learning ecosystems (GLE) offer potential solutions by engaging local communities in sustainable programs that promote literacy and inspire learning while leveraging existing social systems to accelerate geoscience solutions.

Limited research has examined learning ecosystem applications in geosciences. This presentation outlines emerging GLE theory and research methodologies, illustrated through a mixed-methods case study of Earth science (ES) teachers implementing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The study investigated ES teachers in an NGSS-adopted state lacking cohesive implementation plans, addressing three objectives: identifying attributes preparing teachers for NGSS sustainability standards, understanding how teachers' experiences, science belonging, knowledge, and ecological worldview influence instruction, and describing teachers' support networks.

Survey data from 245 ES teachers underwent path analysis, revealing that teachers' degree credentials predicted their sense of belonging in science, which subsequently influenced content knowledge, worldview, and place-based instructional strategy usage. Follow-up interviews with survey participants explored support networks utilized when teaching ES, providing insights into effective GLE development and implementation strategies for enhancing geoscience education.

The Museum Mineralogia München offers a varied and exciting educational program for children designed to arouse their curiosity about earth sciences and planetary phenomena. Building on the natural fascination that many children feel for space, meteorites and the moon, our interactive tours and workshops encourage hands-on learning and discovery.

The main themes of the program include (1) meteorites - rocks from outer space - where children learn about and explore different types such as stony, iron and stony-iron meteorites.

Children can also learn about (2) the dynamic rock cycle, how rocks are formed and transformed by volcanic activity, erosion and tectonic processes. Another popular museum program deals with (3) pebbles from the Isar and encourages children to classify different types of rock, consider where they originated and how they are composed.

A special highlight is the (4) gemstone workshop for young people, where they learn what gemstones there are, how they are composed, what makes real and fake gemstones, how and where they are mined and much more.

With these different interactive and age-appropriate activities, the Museum Mineralogia aims to spark an age-appropriate interest in earth sciences and planetary exploration and provide young visitors with a solid foundation for STEM observation, classification and scientific thinking.

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) Education Committee (EC) launched the Geoscience Education Field Officers (GEFO) programme in 2019, primarily to support geoscience education in Europe. The EGU has provided ongoing support to the programme since that time. Germany was incorporated when the programme was expanded in May 2022.

To evaluate the programme, an online evaluation form is made available to attendees at the end of each workshop. This form is designed to facilitate the collection of data on the characteristics of participants (e.g. the educational establishments they work in, their gender, their role, how many years they have been teaching, their professional position, the level of school they work in, and the subjects they teach) and their perception of the usefulness of the workshop in relation to their teaching practice.

German teachers greatly appreciate the teacher training offered by the German GEFO. The characteristics of the workshops and the results of the evaluation forms will be presented.

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report summarises the knowledge of climate change and defines in the Synthesis Report future climate change scenarios, risks and short- and long-term climatic responses. Of key relevance is the interdependence of climate, ecosystems, biodiversity and human societies.

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by UNESCO aim at peace and prosperity and concentrate on climate change at the same time. The mission of National Geoparks exhibits substantial overlap with many SDGs, for example education (SDG 4), clean water (SDG 6), climate action (SDG 13) and life below water (SDG 14) and on land (SDG 15). In that regard the contribution of geoscience is twofold and covers research and outreach to the public.

School plays a vital role in climate change education although the lack of geoscience content has been recognized as limiting factor. Our National Geoparks have the potential to bridge this gap by providing a variety of attractive activities and educational services. One initiative of Geopark GrenzWelten is the newly designed Climate and Building Stone Korbach City Tour which conveys regional geology and climate change of Earth during 350 million years. Building stones represent exciting low-hanging fruit which help to explain not only regional geology but also highlight the value of domestic resources and to help explain natural vs anthropogenic climate change. The tour presents a fresh view on Zechstein carbonates, Buntsandstein clastics and Neogene volcanics and is offered as post-conference field trip.

The availability of geological science courses in secondary and tertiary education is inconsistent across the world. This is leading to decreasing enrollment in the geosciences in universities, the closure of geology departments in universities facing budgetary crises, and subsequent shortages in qualified workers for some geoscience industries. To counter this decline, schools and universities without a formal degree program in geosciences can develop and offer out-of-classroom learning experiences that showcase the field of geosciences and the range of potential careers. We developed and studied an extracurricular program that provided geoscience research experiences, field excursions, technical training, and career seminars to a group of 22 early undergraduate students at a university that lacks departments of geological, marine, or atmospheric sciences. The program ran for multiple years, with students having the option to participate in the activities that best fit their schedule and interests. We interviewed individual students at multiple times during the program using questions that examined how the program was shaping the students' education and career goals. Transcribed interviews were coded to examine program influence on learning and geoscience career motivation. A key finding was that meaningful relationships—both peer-to-peer and with faculty mentors—boosted students' confidence in pursuing geoscience careers. This research identifies evidence-based strategies for crafting immersive experiences that deepen student connection to geosciences beyond traditional classroom boundaries.