2023 Hayward Geocommunication Award winner
Ben Kennedy and the team who organised VolcanoFest received the Hayward Geocommunication Award from the Geoscience Society of New Zealand at their annual conference.
This award seeks to recognise and promote excellence, innovation and accuracy in “geocommunication” to public audiences by a New Zealand geoscientist or group of geoscientists.
The award recognised the highly successful Volcanofest event(external link) (part of the IAVCEI conference in February 2023), which saw Rotorua locals, teachers and students engage with volcano science, and meet and learn from volcanologists. The event included the development of tools and activities, which are used to engage hundreds to thousands of students beyond Volcanofest.
The award also recognised the provision of accurate and honest advice and answers following the 2019 Whakaari eruption, involving multiple TV and radio interviews, science advice for the Netflix documentary, expert witness work, and support provided to the affected communities.
We congratulate Ben and the team for this prestigious award.