Using the earth system for integrating the science curriculum

Abstract

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.

Las concepciones de los profesores de ciencias mexicanos sobre la situación y futuro del mundo. Una llamada de atención

“…Ésa es la razón por la que en Agenda 21 (Naciones Unidas, 1992) se reclama que todos los educadores ----cualesquiera sea nuestro campo específico de trabajo----contribuyamos a hacer posible la participación ciudadana en la búsqueda de soluciones. Ahora bien, una seria dificultad para que los docentes realicemos esa tarea estriba en que nuestras propias percepciones ''espontáneas'' sobre la situación del mundo son, en general, fragmentarias y superficiales e incurren en la misma grave falta de comprensión de la situación del planeta que se detecta en la generalidad de los ciudadanos, incluida la mayoría de ''los líderes nacionales e internacionales en los campos de la política, los negocios o la ciencia'' (Mayer, 1995). ¿Hasta qué punto esas incorrectas percepciones afectan a la sociedad mexicana y, en particular, a sus profesores de ciencias?…”

A Qualitative Case Study of an Exemplary Science Teacher's Earth Systems Education Experiences

“…First, the curriculum, developed by Dr. J. and other teachers in the middle school, was based on a framework of Earth Systems Education. As Mayer (1995) suggests, the Earth as a system provides conceptual focus and themes for organizing the ESE curriculum. For example, the focus for Dr.…”

“…The Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS) found that 31 states of the U.S. have offered integrated science and that "Earth systems" was used as a major theme of integrated science education in many states (BSCS, 2000). The presence of earth systems in science education is an important phenomenon because such education may increase the global science literacy of all students in their future of a new global era (Kim and Kwak, 2004;Lee et al, 2004;Mayer, 1995Mayer, , 1997Mayer, , 2003.…”

Understanding the earth systems of Malawi: Ecological sustainability, culture, and place‐based education

“…According to Mayer (1995), an earth systems science curricula requires that natural cycles and biogeochemical processes be studied in the context of environmental problems that affect students' everyday lives. Mayer (1997) later suggested that earth systems approach may provide a unifying framework for achieving global science literacy by encouraging "dialogue among peoples of different languages and different cultures" and a "sustainable lifestyle for all the world's citizens" (Mayer, 1997, p. 104).…”

“…Western science is typically empirical, reductionistic, and in the positivist tradition, is considered nonbiased, objective, and disconnected with human or spiritual values. The focus on reductionistic, experimental approaches in science education, however, inadequately represents the nature of science and understanding the complexity of the earth systems (Mayer, 1995). Bowers ( , 2001) explains how Western science, emerging from the enlightenment, is considered high-status knowledge and maintains a human-centered perspective of nature in which the individual, rather than the community, is the basic social unit.…”