18th International Earth Science Olympiad: A Report

Every year International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) is organized to enhance the quality of education, public awareness, and interest in Earth Sciences in schools across the world.The main aim of conducting IESO is to promote international cooperation, exchange of ideas, and to nurture friendly relationships among young student leaders from different countries through experiential learning, analytical skills, field investigation, and understanding the interaction between the various spheres of the Earth's systems.To participate in the 18 th International IESO2025 at Jining, China, the all-India entrance test was conducted on 9 th February 2025 in 184 centers.A total of 4446 students registered for this programme and 3374 students wrote the test.The test and questions designed were more of thought provoking and reasoning rather than text book information, covering the entire syllabus of IESO 2024-2025.This test was marked for 100 marks, each question with multiplechoice answers.The average score was 31.66 marks with highest being 83.A three-week training camp was conducted at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Savitribai Phule, Pune University, Pune, (SPPU), from 9th May to 2 nd June 2025.32 students based on their marks obtained in the entrance test merit were invited.Twenty-one students participated in the training programme (Photo 1).Some of the students withdrew from participation owing to political issue and personnel work at the last minute.The training program was inaugurated by Prof. Shekhar Mande, Chief guest, former Director General, CSIR (Photo 2), who delivered the inaugural address on the significance of earth resources and climate change sustainability.He further spoke how important are training camps; developing in depth the various topics in earth sciences by expert faculties.Prof. Nitin Karmalkar, former Vice Chancellor, SPPU and Chairman NAAC addressed the gathering on IESO and the participation of India in the international event and wished all the participants to do well.Dr. Jagvir Singh, Scientist G, MoES, New Delhi, spoke about the extended programs of the MoES, IESO being one of them and how important IESO is for the MoES to nurture young minds in the current topics of mineral resource sustainability and climate change.Finally, the inauguration came to an end with the address by Dr. Suresh Gosavi, Vice Chancellor, SPPU who wished all the students to take benefit of the opportunity provided by the training and to perform their best.The faculties and resource persons for the training camp were drawn from IISER, IITM, Savitribai Pune