246 Best Practices for Developing International Collaborations in the Geosciences

This session invites presentations on successful scientist to scientist international collaborations in the geosciences in research and educational activities, focussing on how they developed and keys to their success. It will also explore how organizations can help foster international collaborations/engagements.

Wednesday, 22 October 2025
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
HBGCC, 301A

The ABCs of Lake Tanganyika’s Evolution and Ecology: A Young Reader’s Guide to the Inhabitants and History of Africa’s Oldest Lake

Paper number: 246-12
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 11:00 AM – 11:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

Located in the East African Rift, Lake Tanganyika is Africa’s oldest and deepest lake and is considered a living evolutionary laboratory, home to a biodiverse ecosystem with many endemic species flocks. Tanganyika is also a necessary source of food, water, and employment to the four countries that border it, one of which being Tanzania. Despite the lake’s economic and ecological significance to the region, the official Tanzanian primary school curriculum has only one unit dedicated to learning about natural resources, with one hour a week dedicated to health and environment. Additionally, multiple international agencies have identified Tanzania as facing a learning crisis, with letter and word identifications highlighted as areas for improvement. The Tanzanian government, alongside these international agencies, is making a concerted effort to address these challenges, creating a primary school curriculum that dedicates 9.5 hours a week to reading, writing, and basic English language skills. We have identified an opportunity to create a resource capable of fitting into existing curriculum that addresses both literacy and letter-identification in Swahili and English while also educating young learners about the lake. 

We set out to write and illustrate a traditional “ABC book” with the 24 letters that make up the Swahili alphabet. Each letter is paired with a term in Swahili that references the lake, or something that lives within its watershed, the english translation, and an associated illustration. For example, the letter S is paired with the Swahili word “samaki,” or “fish” in English, and features drawings of cichlid fish, which is a well-studied family in Tanganyika, with 90% of the identified species in the lake thought to be endemic. Once our book is published, we will partner with local schools and organizations, like The Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots Program, to disseminate our book in Tanzanian primary schools. The publication and printing costs of our book are being funded by the 2025 Paleontological Society Education and Outreach Grant. The book will be completed as part of the broader impacts of an NSF BoCP project investigating Lake Tanganyika functional biodiversity.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-412861

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