Fostering Geoscience Awareness: Initiatives in Northern Thuringia’s STEM Education Landscape

The promotion of STEM education, known as MINT in German-speaking countries, is widely acknowledged as essential for addressing future scientific challenges and enhancing quality of life. The current scarcity of skilled professionals and declining student interest in scientific fields underscore the urgent need for sustained investment in STEM education, both within schools and through extracurricular initiatives.

The Thuringia Foundation for Technology, Innovation, and Research (STIFT) has taken a leading role in advancing STEM offerings since 2020 through the "MINT-Thüringen" initiative. This collaborative effort involves schools, universities, research institutes, and companies to foster STEM interest from kindergarten to secondary education. Seven STEM regions across Thuringia offer tailored programs, with extracurricular research centres (Schülerforschungszentren, SFZs) serving as the organizational backbone.

In northern Thuringia, initiatives often overlook geosciences, despite the region being rich in geological heritage. To address this gap, the SFZ Nordhausen, based at the University of Applied Sciences of Nordhausen, has set a new goal, namely to raise awareness of local geology and resources. This includes the following initiatives: a pilot school working group with the Kyffhäuser Geopark, a summer camp in collaboration with the South Harz Nature Park and the Youth Art School Nordhausen, and teacher training sessions on mineral resources during the 9^th Thuringian edition of "School MIT Science".

In this meeting, I report on the evaluation of those initial efforts to expand geoscience outreach and cultivate a deeper understanding of the region's geological significance among students and educators with alternative forms of cooperation in schools and extracurricular contexts.