Outstanding Student Presentation Awards (OSPAs)

The Education Section is proud to participate in AGU’s Outstanding Student Presentation Award (OSPA) program. OSPA students in the Education Section present projects from many disciplines of earth and space science education, outreach, and communication, with topics related to a multitude of scientific disciplines. In any given year, the Education Section is incredibly interdisciplinary and includes presentations on just about any topic. Boredom is an impossibility when engaging with enthusiastic students in the Education Section!

The number of students requesting OSPA judging in the Education Section nearly quadrupled between 2016 and 2019. Our Section is very fortunate to have many OSPA judges every year who volunteer their time to score students’ presentations and provide valuable feedback to the students! Some of the judges assist in multiple years, whenever they are attending the AGU Fall Meeting either in person or online. We are extremely grateful for all of the OSPA judges who contribute their time and effort to the Education Section, whether they judge one presentation or twelve at one FM! Thanks to all OSPA judges in the Education Section, a million times over!

The Education Section has provided OSPAs to students with engaging presentations on diverse topics, from hands-on science education methods like board games and virtual reality to creative uses of social media to amazing uses of art as a science communication tool. Please find linked below select summaries of our Section’s recent winners! Education (and other AGU Section) OSPAs from 2011 to 2021 are available from AGU’s OSPA winner list.

The 2022 Fall Meeting Education Section OSPA coordinators are Stacie Bender and Sophia Tsang. If you are interested in judging OSPA presentations, please feel free to reach out to them at agu.e.ospa@gmail.com.

Past OSPA Awardees

2021 Fall Meeting - New Orleans, LA & Online Everywhere

  • Ethan C. Campbell: Cracking the Code: A Flipped, Virtual Approach to Teaching Python in an Undergraduate Setting
  • Helen Fitzmaurice: Oakland Teachers Advancing Climate Action
  • Stuart Pearson: Weird waves cause big trouble on small lands in the middle of the big blue wet thing
  • Dianne Pham: In-person and remote classroom virtual reality activities in geology and geophysics: Insights from a test case
  • Adrienne Ricker: Creation of a collaborative multi-organization undergraduate internship program at UC Santa Cruz

2020 Fall Meeting - Online Everywhere