The summer school entitled “Earth Surface Dynamics – Understanding Processes at the Earth’s Vulnerable Skin” is the fourth summer school I am organizing together with the VolkswagenFoundation. The summer schools in the field of geo-biosciences in East Africa include the disciplines of paleoclimatology, paleontology, paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology, structural geology, and geophysics. I teach these summer schools together with colleagues from Addis Ababa University and the University of Nairobi, as well with many colleagues from other universities.
The first summer school, directed together with U Potsdam biologist Prof. Dr. Ralph Tiedemann and U Nairobi geologist Prof. Dr. Eric Odada. It was held in 2009 and was comprising an excursion and a course on data analysis with MATLAB at the U Nairobi. The second, much larger event entitled “Tectonics, Climate and Evolution in East Africa” was organized in 2010/11 together with Prof. Dr. Eric Odada. The biggest summer school was the one in Ethiopia and Kenya in 2015/16, entitled “Collecting, Processing and Processing Information in the Geo-BioSciences”, organized together with Prof. Dr. Eric Odada and U Addis Ababa geochemist and paleoclimatogist Prof. Dr. Asfawossen Asrat, together with fifteen instructors.
Last year we submitted a proposal for a similar program as the one which will now be organized in 2018 in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Germany. Unfortunately hotel costs in E Africa went up dramatically during the last years. We payed in the order of 8,000–12,000 Euros for accommodation, meals and conference facilities of a group of 30 people in 2010/11, between 13,000–18,000 Euros for the same setup in 2015/16, but it was not possible to find hotels (in some examples the ones we were using for previous events) with rates below 17,000–26,000 Euros.
We, therefore, decided to organize a summer school in Germany, staying at youth hostels and using their excellent conference facilities. Two out of six weeks will be taught at U Potsdam and therefore we will not need the seminar rooms of the local youth hostel. Furthermore, some instructors based in Potsdam can stay at home with their families, including me. We are very much looking forward to the event and hope we will find 25 excellent participants from all over the world!
For more information about the event and how to apply please download the summer school 2018 flyer.