I welcome you all warmly and wholeheartedly to Daegu, Korea, the birthplace of the IESO.

I am very excited about the thought of meeting young Earth science talents and distinguished academic leaders from all over the world. I congratulate all the delegates on having passed stringent national rounds of selection. You have made it to this final stage.

As one of founding members of the IESO, it has been a great pleasure to observe the development of the IESO. I am proud to say that the scale of the 13th IESO is unprecedented, with 43 countries and regions from around the world taking part. I thank you all for your engagement and support.

A deeper understanding of Earth processes and phenomena is necessary now more than ever, because the world is confronting global challenges, including the climate crisis, and has moved into a global age with a prevailing sense that the human species shares a common fate. I see Earth science as being important for every facet of the growth of our future generations, and for the sustainability of all of our societies and the world.

For the most gifted students, the IESO is the highest platform in Earth science. Every year, we are delighted by the creativity and talents displayed by the IESO participants. I hope you share the “Passion for Earth Science”; however, more importantly, I hope that you make friends with your fellow contestants who come from very different corners of the world. I hope that you will find the IESO 2019 experience challenging, fun, and rewarding.

Prof. Chan-Jong Kim

Chairperson of
13th International Earth Science Olympiad
Organizing Committee

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

The International Earth Science Olympiad is one of the major activities of the International Geoscience Education Organization. We held this educational activity annually since 2007. First edition was held in the Republic of Korea and it’s nice to come here again after 13 years. The organization of this Olympiad evolves along the years. The final goal is to spread the idea of the Earth Science system into science curriculum of participating countries and engage students and teachers in this purpose. In this edition, there are two countries involved, welcome to everybody! A special welcome goes to the countries that participate for the first time: United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan.

Dear students, you are the winners of your national Olympiad, many teachers and institutions contribute for support and realize your national Olympiad and support you to come here, please bring to them and to your family our gratitude. I wish you to be deeply engage in all the educational activities, compete in a fair way, learn something new about earth science system and last but not least make new friends that I hope they last for long time. I wonder if you have an idea about how much you are lucky to be here. But this is also a huge responsibility. In few years you will be professionals approaching your own career. I hope that some of you keep working on earth science, but I guess that many of you will follow different path and will be engaged in different areas of society. That it’s also pretty good, because we need that society as a whole have a better understanding of how our planet works. So IESO will be a legacy for all if you, how you will use your knowledge on Earth Science in the future? I will be really happy if at the end of this week some of you share with us your purpose. I wish you all to spend a good time in the Republic of Korea, enjoy the rich program and all the best to the team of all the countries! Many thanks to all of you for your patience and your attention, gamsa-hamnida.

Roberto Greco

Chairperson of International Geoscience Education Organization

It is with great pleasure that I welcome all IESO students, mentors, committee members and guests to the 13th International Earth Science Olympiad 2019. I would like to express my deepest gratitude on behalf of our country, South Korea for this opportunity to host this amazing event a second time. We are also thankful to all the sponsors, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity, Daegu Metropolitan City, Cheongsong-Gun, the Daegu National Science Museum, and all the academic societies related to the Geosciences for their support in making this competition happen.

In 2007, 11 countries participated in the first IESO right here in the city of Daegu. This became the foundation of today’s IESO and has continued to grow in popularity and prominence and now includes 43 countries! The Korea Earth Science Society (KESS) would like the IESO in Daegu to be a stepping stone towards fostering sincere passion in the Earth Sciences by gathering young students from all over the world. In order to achieve this goal, we would like to encourage international cooperation amongst the students through the exchange of ideas on geo-science. We also hope to raise your awareness and support these outstanding students in order to be the future leaders in this field. Lastly, we would like to support your interests and challenge you to critique and contribute to solving the global challenges of climate change, natural disasters, energy sources and so on.

May I close by encouraging each one of you to enjoy your time here, by opening your minds to each experience, whether it be academic, social or cultural challenges. Thank you once again to all that have contributed to making this Olympiad a success. I wish you much luck!

Prof. Jae-Bok Kyung

President of
the Korea Earth Science
Education Society

Today, 12 years since the first IESO, I'd like to congratulate the IESO for its successful advancements such as continuity without any interruption, its returning back to Korea after the whole global rounding hopping over the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, and the expansion of the number of participant countries from 7 to 43.

I am extremely glad to look at the IESO flag as the evidence of the IESO success. We are proud of the IESO's success in terms of the fast development and the cooperation between countries with different academic systems for teaching earth science in high school years.

I feel convinced that our student delegates will be great leaders in each country and in the world whatever professional field they engage in. We look forward to hearing about their successful careers in each country.

Personally I am very excited to meet again the former colleagues for the IESO and mentors from each country. I thank the Korea Government for the financial support for this IESO, and all the staff of the Organizing Committee for their hard work.

I wish all participants in the 13th IESO have a great time in Daegu, Korea.
Thank you so much,

Prof. Muyoung Song

Organizer of The 1^st IESO