Earth Science Week and Earth Science Literacy

It’s Earth Science Week
again, stimulated and coordinated by the AGI:

Since October 1998, the American Geological Institute has organized this
national and international event to help the public gain a better
understanding and appreciation for the Earth Sciences and to encourage
stewardship of the Earth. This year’s Earth Science Week will be held from
October 10-16 and will celebrate the theme “Exploring Energy.”

This time last year I connected this with the Earth Science Literacy
Initiative, again an American program funded by the National Science
Foundation, and I put together, inevitably, [a discussion](https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2009/10/earth-
science-week—sand-and-the-nine-big-ideas.html) of how sand illustrates the
“Big Ideas” documented by that initiative. I would like to think that, today,
one year on, it would be possible to document progress in awareness and
literacy, but I fear that it’s not. If anything, on both sides of the
Atlantic, it’s got worse. The events surrounding “climategate” and its
repercussions have profoundly damaged trust in science, in the UK research
funding is about to be dismembered, anti-intellectualism is a vote-catcher in
the bizarre corners of the US midterm elections, and news headlines continue
to rely on fear and over-simplification. Yet the means by which the voices of
science and scientists can create a meaningful riposte to all this remain
elusive. And yet who could dispute the statement from the Earth Science Literacy
initiative that:

An Earth-science-literate public, informed by current and accurate
scientific understanding of Earth, is critical to the promotion of good
stewardship, sound policy, and international cooperation. Earth science
education is important for individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and
nationalities.

While both of these projects are inspired by institutions in the US and
directed in the first instance to an American audience, they are both of
international importance: simply replace “American” with “global” in their
content. And that content is excellent. Here are the “Big Ideas” (again, in
the interests of generating a little momentum here and there):

Big Idea 1. Earth scientists use repeatable observations and testable ideas
to understand and explain our planet.

Big Idea 2. Earth is 4.6 billion years old.

Big Idea 3. Earth is a complex system of interacting rock, water, air, and
life.

Big Idea 4. Earth is continuously changing.

Big Idea 5. Earth is the water planet.

Big Idea 6. Life evolves on a dynamic Earth and continuously modifies Earth.

Big Idea 7. Humans depend on Earth for resources.

Big Idea 8. Natural hazards pose risks to humans.

And, since I certainly couldn’t put it any better, here’s an extract from the
“Background and Motivation” section of the Earth Science Literacy document:

Defining a set of essential ideas that a literate American should know about
the geosciences is a critical national need in an information-rich age
characterized by a rapidly changing planet and numerous resource challenges.
Critical decisions involving Earth science are continuously made within the
political and educational realms, with significant impacts on all American
citizens. In today’s world, it is no longer sufficient for scientific
communities to assume that simply doing a good job of carrying out cutting
edge research is sufficient. The research community simply must do a better
job of making sure that its scientific discoveries do not get buried in
libraries or on the Internet, but make it into mainstream circles. The
research community must do a better job of helping the public understand the
most important concepts emerging from geoscience research. However,
understanding scientific discoveries requires a science-literate population.
The Earth sciences literacy document that has been produced here will help
accomplish that goal, and can help inform those who will make future
decisions involving governmental legislation and educational science
standards.

With the development of the Internet, our society has very rapidly gone from
being information-poor to information-overwhelmed in the area of science
(and many other areas as well). As a result, the need for a set of BIaSCs
(“Big Ideas” and Supporting Concepts) has become paramount. There is an
overwhelming amount of information available, but not necessarily any sense
of how to navigate through it or determine what is most important. Someone
trying to find out about an Earth science topic (a lawyer, engineer, museum
director, textbook writer, legislator, etc.) could easily be overwhelmed by
the amount of information available. A prioritization of essential ideas,
carried out by the scientific communities, would provide the basis and
framework that would help people navigate through the rapidly expanding
amount of scientific information…

It is quite possible that, from the perspective of future civilizations, the
21st century will be defined by three things: climate change, water
availability, and energy resources. These three are not independent, of
course, and the fate of humanity will rest upon how they are addressed over
the next 100 years. Importantly, in the context of the current proposal, all
three are deeply rooted in the areas of Earth science. Many important
political, legal and ethical decisions are being made related to these
issues that already severely affect the lives of all Americans. The lack of
clear, concise and comprehensive community-driven guidelines puts all
Americans at risk of bad decisions made either through either ignorance or
self-interest. For example, the resistance within certain spheres to accept
the relevance and validity of global climate change for as long as it did
caused our country significant embarrassment at an international level, and
severely delayed international attempts to address the matter.

This is especially important in areas of Earth science, which are becoming
increasingly relevant as human populations increase and natural resources
dwindle. More than a third of all land not covered by ice is now used for
producing food for humans (agriculture or the grazing of livestock). This
land use must be planned with maximum understanding of Earth science, and
the BIaSCs we have created here will become part of a process that help
guide the education and policy-making needed to allow it to happen.

The Earth Science Week and Literacy sites are full of excellent further
resources – for example, the SEED online toolkit,
and the
Ocean,
Atmospheric Science,
and
Climate
Literacy Networks.

For the header for this post, I used the stunning image of our planet recently
released by NASA.
Rather than the traditional view with its emphasis on the continents, this
image reveals the truth of the matter – the “Blue Marble” really is dominantly
a water planet. The wording that goes along with the image is:

Viewed from space, the most striking feature of our planet is the water. In
both liquid and frozen form, it covers 75% of the Earth’s surface. It fills
the sky with clouds. Water is practically everywhere on Earth, from inside
the rocky crust to inside our cells.

This detailed, photo-like view of Earth is based largely on observations
from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS)
on NASA’s
Terra
satellite. It is one of many images of our watery world featured in a new > story examining
water
in all of its forms and functions. Here is an excerpt:

“In all, the Earth’s water content is about 1.39 billion cubic kilometers
(331 million cubic miles), with the bulk of it, about 96.5%, being in the
global oceans. As for the rest, approximately 1.7% is stored in the polar
icecaps, glaciers, and permanent snow, and another 1.7% is stored in
groundwater, lakes, rivers, streams, and soil.

Only a thousandth of 1% of the water on Earth exists as water vapor in the
atmosphere. Despite its small amount, this water vapor has a huge influence
on the planet. Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it is a major
driver of the Earth’s weather and climate as it travels around the globe,
transporting heat with it.

For human needs, the amount of freshwater for drinking and agriculture is
particularly important. Freshwater exists in lakes, rivers, groundwater, and
frozen as snow and ice. Estimates of groundwater are particularly difficult
to make, and they vary widely. Groundwater may constitute anywhere from
approximately 22 to 30% of fresh water, with ice accounting for most of the
remaining 78 to 70%.”

And, on that note, I read two recent headlines: “[Water cycle goes bust as the world gets
warmer](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19565-water-
cycle-goes-bust-as-the-world-gets-warmer.html?DCMP=OTC-
rss&nsref=environment),” and “[Expect More Floods as Global Water Cycle Speeds Up](http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/10/more-
water-flooding-postel.html).” One predicts droughts and the other floods (all
as a result of global warming). They are undoubtedly both right, in different
ways and for different reasons; changes in the “global” water cycle (if there
is such a thing and if we were genuinely able to measure it) result from
profoundly complex interactions and feedbacks amongst a host of variables, and
manifest themselves in very different ways at different places on the earth’s
surface. Can we please look at these two pieces of research in this context
– and learn from them through the spectacles of Earth Science Literacy?

[On the topic of science reporting in the media, Martin Robbins, on the UK Guardian newspaper site, recently wrote a [great
piece](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-
lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1) “This is a news website article about a
scientific paper.” It’s very funny – but it’s also depressing in its accuracy:
enjoy it and see if you can read a science report in the media in the same way
ever again. And yesterday he
[described](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-
lay-scientist/2010/oct/11/2) two completely conflicting interpretations of
recent research on the sun’s behaviour…]

Comments

Jules (2010-10-12):

Michael, what a change from when I was boy at the beginning of the space race after Sputnick when science and the pursuit of knowledge was held in such high esteem in the USA. Now it seems that some of our populace takes great pride in willful ignorance, intellectual laziness, being satisfied with mindless pop culture and believing in fundamentalist nonsense.
How ironic and depressing that while we have established a sophisticated global communication system with real knowledge and facts at our finger tips, and made great strides with technology, so many would be drawn to darkness, mediocrity, irrationality and utter stupidity.
Our species is capable of so much more excellence and long term vision however lately we are so myopically self-absorbed with short term thinking and instant gratification, we are willingly destroying the beauties and higher forms of our cultures and seriously compromising the biology of life that sustains us.
I did not imagine such a perplexing and deeply frustrating era for our society when I witnessed in awe the first moon landing in 1969.

Sandglass (2010-10-12):

Well said, Jules! I feel the same way - sounds like we were boys around the same time…

Richard Bready (2011-04-29):

Speaking of fresh water, have you seen what they propose to do over the Ogalalla aquifer? A huge pipeline pushing corrosive Canadian oil sand and oil shale, suspended in a matrix of natural gas, from Alberta to Houston, in pipe built to tolerances appropriate for carrying petroleum.
“Whenever people say, ‘We mustn’t be sentimental,’ you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, ‘We must be realistic,’ they mean they are going to make money out of it.” - Brigid Brophy

Originally published at: https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/10/earth-science-week-and-earth-science-literacy.html