TIMOTHY J. BRALOWER, P. GEOFFREY FEISS, AND CATHRYN A. MANDUCA Preparing a New Generation of Face Earth’s Future

HOW MUCH will global temperatures rise over must establish its place in college curricula to the next century? How fast will ice sheets on ensure that a new generation of citizens and Antarctica and Greenland melt and raise scientists is prepared to meet future challenges. global sea level? Will rising temperature and To earth scientists, all of this is self-evident. acidification of the oceans extinguish corals But it is not always so within the broader com- and other endangered marine ecosystems? munities of the academy. We hear, for example, Will global warming cause hurricanes more that the twenty-first century will be the “Cen- powerful than Andrew and Katrina? What tury of Biology.” Earth science courses, faculty, triggers the massive earthquakes that cause and departments are often the first casualties of large tsunamis such as the devastating 2004 financial exigency and budget insufficiency. Is Indian Ocean event? These questions of hab- it possible that in 2050 we will find ourselves FEATURED TOPIC itability, sustainability, and survival are dri- wrestling with an earth system we only partially ving a surge of understand as human impacts tip us toward cli- research in earth sys- mate, ecosystem, and resource crises of literally tem science, a field that incorporates atmos- life-threatening or apocalyptic dimensions? Earth system pheric science, earth science, ecology, and We posit that strong research in earth sys- science must oceanography. Moreover, they are transform- tem science and equally strong investments in ing the field from one that focused on the past both teaching the earth sciences and training establish its place to one that is increasingly forward-looking, a new generation of earth system scientists are in college curricula aided by major advances in instrumentation not optional but essential. The handwriting is and computational power. on the wall: we have only one earth; we are As the research interests and the focus of engaged in a dangerous experiment that in- traditional earth scientists are transformed, so volves altering the dynamics of earth systems too must education in earth system science at upon which we are wholly dependent; we do colleges and universities across the country not fully understand how the system works, change. The required change involved not and we are only beginning to be able to predict only the methods we use to teach this new sci- our effect on that system. ence, but also the essential place of the earth sciences in the panoply of disciplines as tradi- Global crises tionally ordered by our academic colleagues. Without doubt, earth system science is the ben- With growing public and political awareness eficiary of global misfortune. This science is vital of the significant environmental problems fac- to understanding crucial global threats in the ing the earth in the coming decades, and the coming century: shortages of water (potable and realization that issues such as global warming otherwise), declining availability of fossil fuels, require action on the part of individuals as coastal inundation, the literal collapse of eco- well as governments, earth system science systems, and of course, global warming—to name the obvious. Global warming threatens to TIMOTHY J. BRALOWER is department head and wreak havoc with global agriculture, with par- professor of geosciences at the Pennsylvania State ticularly strong impacts in tropical and subtrop- University, P. GEOFFREY FEISS is provost at the ical regions that include a large portion of the College of William and Mary, and CATHRYN A. developing world. The combination of scarce MANDUCA is director of the Science Education natural resources and population increase is Resource Center at Carleton College. not sustainable. Overpopulation, largely in

20 L IBERAL E DUCATION S PRING 2008 f Citizens and Scientists to

Carleton College FEATURED TOPIC blessing tothevictimsof conflict uncertain astowhetherthiswill Darfur. Yet, recentnewsarticlesandop-edsare Sudan suddenlyalterthepoliticalequationin of hugesubsurfacewaterresourcesinwestern [in Darfur]”(Polgreen2007).Recentdiscoveries sustained bypolitical,tribalorethnicdifferences the conditionsforconflictstobetriggeredand and relatedenvironmentalstresshavecreated recent report,“exponentialpopulationgrowth about water. AstheUnitedNationssaidina Darfur iscertainlyaboutpolitics,butitalso supplies ofcleandrinkingwater. Thehorrorof health thanthatposedbylimitstoavailable no greaterthreattoglobalstabilityandhuman politics inthe tional fundamentally drive simply mattersofscientificinterest;theywill year byrisingsealevels.Theseissuesarenot hundred millionpeoplewillbeaffectedeach 2L 22 have provided anenormousboosttoresearch surge incomputationalcapacity andspeed truth. Majoradvancesintechnology anda cation. Nothingcouldbefurther fromthe they belongtoaneraofdiscovery andclassifi- ofinquiry,nineteenth-century modes that ences—especially geology—arerelictsof There aresomewhoarguethattheearthsci- and informatics Advances intechnology,computing, Change ( the IntergovernmentalPanelonClimate prone to harm’s wayastownsandcitiesarebuiltinareas and SoutheastAsia,placespeopledirectlyin developing countriesandespeciallyinAfrica citizenry well-educatedabouttheearth. lic policythatwilldemandaworkforceand has deepandcomplexramificationsforpub- is notonlyexcitingtostudents,butthatalso This isearthsystemscience.Itsciencethat water, forexample)inaneconomicalfashion. of nonpotablewaterfromothersources(sea- contaminated waterorconvertlargevolumes We willhavetodevelopnewwaysclean the supplyofwaterforhumanconsumption. culture andindustrywillcompetedirectlywith overwhelmed anddemandforwateragri- current suppliesofcleandrinkingwaterwillbe the globalpopulationlikelydoublingby2050, ger ofourfuture?Estimatessuggestthatwith Consider aspecificexample.Thereisprobably Is thisonesmallexample,orisittheharbin- IBERAL natural disasters.The2007reportof IPCC E DUCATION ) projectsthat,by2080,one national andinterna- twenty-first century. S PRING 2008 be acurseor in theSudan. championed by collected bysatellitesorfromaircraftand on agriculture andweatherinspecificareas. ing researcherstounderstand thelikelyimpact temperatures andprecipitation patterns,allow- effect ofrisingcarbondioxide levelsonsurface sharp risesin to predictlargemeltingeventsthatcanlead Greenland andAntarctica,whichareneeded the basalconditionsoflargeicesheets experiments havethepotentialtodetermine coastal zone.Ice-penetratingradarandseismic the long-termeffectsoffuturestorms meter. Thesedatacanhelpgeologistsforecast coastal zoneelevationontheorderofacenti- Geological Survey, candeterminechangesin (Light DetectingandRanging,or“ Incredibly sensitiveopticalremotesensingdata trigger thenextlargeearthquakeinCalifornia. forces intheearth’s crustthatwillultimately ray willhelpusunderstandthebuildupof boundary alongtheSanAndreasFault.Thisar- array thatcanmeasuretinymotionsoftheplate and highlysensitiveglobalpositioning–system National ScienceFoundation,includesavast for understandingplanetarysystems. powerfuldatasetsforpredictionand acquire us theabilitytoemployremotesystems advancesintheearthsciencesgive systems, genetics andmolecularprocessesinliving has allowedthebiosciencestounderstand on theearthsystem.Justasgenesequencing climate ( ofthe For example,generalcirculation models to policymakingandpoliticaldecisionmaking. thatarefundamental focused onforecastmodels into coursesthroughoutthecurriculum. faculty wereintegratingdatafrombothevents days oftheIndianOceanquakeandKatrina, learningbased onreal-timedata.Withinactive alsoenable exciting,authentic, occurrence within days,sometimesevenhours,oftheir researcherstounderstandearth events allow nology, informatics,andvisualizationthat months oftheseevents.Thesamenewtech- of HurricaneKatrinawereconductedwithin Oceanearthquakeandthemeteorology Indian major studiesoftheseismology2004 and rapidanalysisofearthevents.Forexample, system scientists,areallowingdetailedmodeling in manycasesdrivenbyquestionsaskedearth For example,EarthScope,fundedbythe Earth systemscienceresearchisincreasingly New advancesincomputingandinformatics, GCM sea level. s) canbeappliedtosimulate the NASA and theUnitedStates LIDAR on the ”), The day of Importantly, the models also “rocks for jocks” to introduce students to scien- allow researchers to explore is past tific thinking, the complex be- the validity of their results. havior of natural systems, and The recent IPCC report on problem solving, preparing climate change shows that the confidence of them to make the individual and collective de- prediction of temperature increase is signifi- cisions that affect our environment. cantly greater than that of sea level rise; mod- Given the increasing societal importance of els can predict warming as a result of carbon earth system research and the growing need dioxide increase with far more certainty than for scientists to tackle environmental issues they can forecast how fast glaciers will melt. that have complex legal, policy, and ethical Like data, models are easily accessed in ramifications, earth system science education FEATURED TOPIC teaching environments. Earth system science must be interfaced with programs and courses teaching frequently takes advantage of online in policy, law, and ethics. Such interdisciplinary research models—for example, GCMs that programs already exist at the graduate level, simulate future climate scenarios are available but a compelling case can be made for under- on the National Center for Atmospheric Re- graduate curricula that provide a solid basis of search Web site—as well as modeling tools earth system science allied with internships in that allow students to create and explore their law and public policy. Moreover, this shift will own models. There are few teachable moments affect programs in oceanography and ecology that can compare to allowing students to ex- that typically only offer degrees at the graduate plore a flooding model for New Orleans in the level and that must increasingly focus on under- aftermath of Katrina and discuss not only its graduates, targeting students who are interested scientific basis but the policy and societal im- in the intersection of science, policy, and law. plications as well. Earth system science holds the keys to press- ing issues that will increasingly control the Earth system science and the curriculum ability of humans to maintain current ways of How do we teach earth system science? This is life. Education about the earth must begin at the a field that is inherently interdisciplinary. The K–12 level, and we advocate increased emphasis core fields—earth science, ecology, atmospheric and higher standards, especially in middle and science, and marine science—bring together high schools. However, colleges and universities biology, chemistry, math, computer science, and must lead the charge toward increasing earth physics with observations of the earth to address science literacy. The day of “rocks for jocks” is complex real-world problems. As a result, it is past; everyone needs to understand more possible to find earth system science being deeply the environmental crises that face the taught in many places on campus. Courses ad- earth. It is time to reexamine the status of dressing earth system science have long been earth system science in your institution. ■ essential parts of the general education curricu- lum, where they stand next to Astronomy 101 To respond to this article, e-mail [email protected], as among the most popular choices for students with the authors’ names on the subject line. seeking to fulfill distribution requirements. The traditional curricula that forced genera- tions of general education students into “rocks REFERENCES for jocks,” where they memorized dozens of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. fossils and minerals, are a dying breed, however. Climate change 2007: The physical science basis. Con- tribution of Working Group I to the fourth assessment New earth science curricula stress problem report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate solving and active learning, taking advantage Change, ed. S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. of the opportunities presented by real-time data Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor, and H. on our planet. In recent decades, the traditional L. Miller. New York: Cambridge University Press. Geology 101 has often been supplemented Polgreen, L. 2007. A godsend for Darfur, or a curse? The New York Times. July 22. or replaced with topical courses capturing attention with titles such as “Energy Wars,” “Forensic Geology,” and “Natural Disasters: Hollywood versus Reality.” Introductory geo- science instructors nationwide use such topics

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