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Content and process instruction from the earth sciences has gone unrepresented in the world's science curricula, especially at the secondary level. As a result there is a serious deficiency in public understanding of the planet on which we all live. This lack includes national and international leaders in politics, business, and science. The earth system science effort now engaging the research talent of the earth sciences provides a firm foundation from the sciences for inclusion of earth systems content into the evolving integrated science curricula of this country and others. Implementing integrated science curricula, especially at the secondary level where potential leaders often have their only exposure to science, can help to address these problems. The earth system provides a conceptual theme as opposed to a disciplinary theme for organizing such integrated curricula, absent from prior efforts. The end of the cold war era is resulting in a reexamination of science and the influence it has had on our planet and society. In the future, science and the curricula that teach about science must seriously address the environmental and social problems left in the wake of over 100 years of preparation for military and economic war. The earth systems education effort provides one such approach to the modernization of science curricula. Earth science educators should assume leadership in helping to establish such curricula in this country and around the world. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons. Inc.

During the summer of 1996, China, Korea, Bangladesh, India, and other Asian countries experienced very serious and deadly flooding. Over the past several years, the U.S. also has had extensive flooding around the Mississippi River and its tributaries as well as excessive summer temperatures, wild fires, and other destructive weather-related phenomena. In its report submitted in December 1995, the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared for the first time that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the climate" (see IPCC homepage on the Internet, http://www.unep.ch/ipcc/ipcc95.html). The analysis of data being collected by scientists now indicates that humans are almost certainly influencing the frequency and intensity of such weather phenomena. The IPCC report goes on to make predictions of the effects of climate change on different areas of the world. Most of the predictions are disruptive of the economic and social conditions of the world's countries. Responsibilities of Scientists and Science Educators Changes in our climate system are being brought about by a science our profession has participated in since at least the beginning of the First World War (Kevles, 1987). This science, as a matter of national priorities, has focused on the provision of knowledge that provided the basis for developing technology employed in combat between nations. Until the end of the Cold War, much of this was physical combat. Now the confrontation continues, under the guise of economic conflict between and among the major developed and developing countries. As science educators, we bear some of the responsibility for causing changes in our habitat because of our efforts to develop science curricula that would educate and enlist talented workers in the physical and biological sciences to discover the fundamental physical and chemical processes that have provided the basis for the technological "advances." With the end of the Cold War, the need for weapons of defense and offense ought to be di-JOURNAL

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