New Delhi: Aditya Pal, Kolkata, Amarjeet Pandde (Mumbai) and Guhan Narayanan (Bangalore) were awarded silver medals in the 10th International Earth Science Olympiad held at MIE, Japan. Also Guhan Narayanan won another silver medal for India in the team event. This year the 10th International Earth Science Olympiad (10th IESO) was held from 21 to 27 August 2016 at Mie, Japan. The theme logo of IESO-2016, Japan was “Our Future: Earth and Space.”
Three Indian high school students who won four silver medals in the said international science competition called on the Minister for Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, in New Delhi today (05 October 2016). This year students from 26 countries participated in the IESO (a total of 201 students).
International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) is an annual earth science competition for secondary school students and is conducted each year in a different country. It is an outreach programme and one of the main activities of the International Geoscience Educational Organization (IGEO), affiliated to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This year a total of 10 gold, 20 silver and 30 bronze medals were distributed to the students in ; ranked based on the performance in the written and practical tests. Theory marks comprised 70%, while practical marks were 30%.
Students who are winners of the respective National Competitions are invited to participate in the IESO. There is a written and practical tests and the performances in these tests are awarded gold, silver and bronze medals. Team activities like International Team Field Investigation (ITFI) and Earth System Project (ESP) are unique to IESO programme in addition to the written and practical tests.
The Indian team was represented by four students: Aditya pal, (Kolkata), Amarjeet Pandde (Mumbai), Guhan Narayanan (Bangalore) and Divyansh Joshi (Udaipur). Dr. K.Godhavari (Secretary, Geological Society of India, Observer) and Dr. Hema Achyuthan (National Coordinator, Mentor) led the Indian team.
The Geological Society of India, Bangalore, which also shares similar objectives and as a part of its outreach programme towards popularizing Earth Sciences amongst school students, conducts every year the Indian National Earth Science Olympiad with the support of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, GOI. For this purpose, the selection of the Indian team takes place in two important steps. First an entrance test is conducted in centers for the school students studying in the 9th, 10, 11 and 12th standard.
This year a total of nearly 3700 students appeared in the test in 70 centers. Twenty-one students were short listed to undergo summer training at Anna University, Chennai from 13th to 30th May 2016. An intensive training by the faculty members invited from Academia, Universities, Research institutions and Government organizations were imparted. At the end of the training programme, Indian National Earth Science Olympiad was conducted, both written and practical tests. Four students were selected on the basis of the merit out of the 20 students.
It may be noted that for this purpose, selections and preparations starts a year ahead in November/ December and ends around July/August the next year. However, the selection for the IESO India team starts from the month of March and concludes in the month of August just before the International event.
