Image from the NASA Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) website See also MyNASA Data.

'Understanding Earth’s interconnected systems is crucial to the future of our nation and the world. Yet our nation’s schools have a mixed record of effective Earth science education.' (Hoffman and Barstow 2007 in Revolutionizing Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century, Report and Recommendations from a 50-State Analysis of Earth Science Education Standards.)

In this post, we think through aspects of why and how we do Earth System (Science) Education as a part of school 'Earth Science', what are the special features, benefits and challenges of Earth System Education, and where to go for guidance on how to develop teaching and learning to address the challenges.

This article has 4 parts:

About Earth System Science (ESS)
About the four core emergent Earth System properties - Biophysical 'Understandings'
About Earth System Science Education and Earth System Education (ESE)
Lenses, approaches, activities, sites and examples of current Earth System Education

1. About Earth System Science (ESS)

"In the context of global change, the Earth System has come to mean the suite of interacting physical, chemical, and biological global-scale cycles (often called biogeochemical cycles) and energy fluxes which provide the conditions necessary for life on the planet"

Frank Oldfield and Will Steffen, Chapter 1 An Integrated Earth System in: IGBP (a) Series Global Change and The Earth System - A Planet Under Pressure, 2004. Download the book here. 'Cycles' is a generic nominalisation referring to the processes that transfer and transform Earth's matter and energy. (a) In 2012 the International Geosphere Biosphere Program, IGBP, became what is now known as Future Earth.)

Earth System Science is mainly a field of 'hard science'. At the same time, it is also trans-disciplinary, not only within natural sciences but also extending out to all the social sciences. The reasons for this is obvious once you see it - it is because Earth System Science places the human system(s) physically within the Earth System. It is also because nearly every science discipline is used to understand the Earth System. Some of this inherent complexity is captured in the other names given to the field, 'biogeophysics' or 'biogeochemistry'.

Like all sciences, ESS uses global collaboration to gradually build working understandings of systems - think of the human body for another example. ESS both exemplifies expertise and at the same time is the absolute antithesis of the academic 'silo'. It seems that eventually what we know as 'Geoscience' and 'Earth Science' will include more and more tools and perspectives from the 'Earth System Science Toolkit' and that Geoscience and Earth Science will come to mean Earth System Science.

A good example of the kind of global collaboration which Earth System Science both stimulates and drives is the comprehensive international sustainability program Future Earth. Looking a little closer one can see that Earth System Science underpins a number of well-known frameworks being used to understand, conserve and restore to health and resilience to all of the Earth's 'processes' and all of what's called of 'nature's services to people' (NSPs).

Included as products of Earth System Science are frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's); Science-Based Targets (SBT's); Sustainable Development Indices (SDI, Hickel 2020); Planetary Boundaries and Safe and Just Operating Spaces (PBs and SOS's Rockstrom et al and Raworth). Even the now well-known concept of the Anthropocene is derived from Earth System Science. Read more about the connections at AAEEs post 'Tipping points, planetary boundaries and safe operating spaces' here.

As everyone knows, no country in the world currently meets the basic needs of its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. But even so, some are worse than others, and it is per capita consumption levels which are the main driver. It is useful to take a look at the status for each part of of the Earth System, eg on an interactive world map, which in turn is based on the 'Planetary Boundaries (PB) radar'.

Used with permission Take a look at this clickable interactive Planetary Boundaries animation http://www.anthropocene.info/planetary-boundaries.php

The 'PB radar' as it is called is a way of graphing the 'threshold proximity' of each of the Earth System's nine regulatory and 'resilience' processes and systems in a familiar 'hazard level' indicator for each of the systems. Doing this reveals the globes most pressing sustainability priorities, and new work is enabling this hazard level approach to be scaled to local regions.

Using this framework, the nine 'Planetary Boundaries' of the current Earth System are:

* Stratospheric ozone and its depletion;

* Biosphere integrity and its loss (biodiversity loss and extinctions);

* Chemical pollution and the release of novel entities;

* The climate system and climate change;

* Ocean acidification;

* The global hydrological cycle and freshwater consumption;

* The land system and its change;

* Nitrogen and phosphorus and its flows to the biosphere and oceans; and

* Atmospheric aerosol loading.

Within this set of nine Planetary Boundaries, there are two, climate change and biosphere integrity, that scientists call 'core boundaries'. Significantly altering either of these two boundaries would drive the Earth System into a new stable mode or 'state'. Hear more about Planetary Boundaries approach and about each boundary here.

Most if not all of the individual processes and systems within the Earth System interact in various ways. This kind of data and holistic approach, which is now driving modern sustainability, are all based on Earth System Science.

Image from the 'A Good Life For All Within Planetary Boundaries' project website, University of Leeds; The Earth's 9 most threatened 'spaces', or 'planetary boundaries' (PB's) are: Stratospheric ozone depletion; Loss of biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and extinctions); Chemical pollution and the release of novel entities; Climate Change; Ocean acidification; Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle; Land system change; Nitrogen and phosphorus flows to the biosphere and oceans; Atmospheric aerosol loading Click here to go to another kind of interactive version of the 'PB radar'. Read more: Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K. et al. (2009) A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475. https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a. Data and analysis of this kind have determined that the global human population's physical needs such as nutrition, sanitation, access to electricity and the elimination of extreme poverty could likely be met, ie for all people, without transgressing planetary boundaries. However, this analysis also reveals that the universal achievement of more qualitative goals (for example, high life satisfaction) would require a level of resource use that is 2–6 times the sustainable level, based on current equities/inequities. Read more: O’Neill, D.W., Fanning, A.L., Lamb, W.F. et al. (2018) A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nat Sustain 1, 88–95. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0021-4 and Jason Hickel (2018): Is it possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries?, Third World Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2018.1535895

Now sited as firmly at the base as at the centre of modern sustainability, conservation and restoration efforts, Earth System Science can also be seen as having its roots in the thinking of the first nation's scientists of the world (Steffen et al, 2020) In the mid 20th Century, with increased funding and a lot of legwork, it developed the ability to make so many new observations of local phenomena and events that scientists were able to painstakingly construct the first global 'pictures' of an Earth System. Notably, much of this was at first concerned with water in its various forms, as part of the layers of the atmosphere, glaciers, clouds and oceans. Then, over the last few decades, satellites, big data and modelling enabled the field of Earth Observations to become what it is today - if you consulted the FiresNearMe app on your phone over the summer then you have directly interacted with the science of Earth Observations. Earth observations, along with the perspective of geologic time gained through paleobiology, geophysics and geochemistry, form the basis of Earth System Science.

Read more: The emergence and evolution of Earth System Science, 2020,Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, Opha Pauline Dube, Sébastien Dutreuil, Timothy M. Lenton and Jane Lubchenco. Nat Rev Earth Environ 1, 54–63 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-019-0005-6

Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene, 2018, Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, Michel Crucifix, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Steven J. Lade, Marten Scheffer, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber PNAS August 14, 2018 115 (33) 8252-8259; first published August 6, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

Sarah Dry 2019 Waters of the World: The story of the scientists who unravelled the mysteries of our oceans, atmosphere, and ice sheets and made the planet whole, University of Chicago Press.

2. About Earth System Understandings

As well as being a richly detailed and relevant scientific revolution in its own right, and fundamental to a 'technical' understanding of what is and how to achieve sustainability, ESS has revealed four essential emergent properties or 'understandings'.

These four understandings characterise the 'systemic behaviour' of the Earth System, not just now in our era and epoch, but through all time.

Understanding these four properties is essential to a deep understanding of how the Earth has responded to changes and 'forcings' in the past, as well as in our time, and in the future.

In summary, these understandings and properties are:

* 'modal variability';

* life as a driver of the Earth System as a whole;

* 'connectivity'; and

* sudden 'tipping points'.

Some of the most pressing questions for Earth Science and sustainability education then are:

* Do the essential understandings of the Earth System currently explicitly form part of the basis of education about the Earth?

*Are teachers and students given enough time and guidance to learn and really understand them?

* And if not, why not?

Earth System Understandings - Some Detail

The Earth System can exist in one of several possible 'modes' or 'states' - while there can be longstanding modes and apparent 'balance', as well as extensive global variation in life, air, water and rocks, there is no permanent mode. This is the variability principle.
Life itself is a key driver and participant in the system, responding to and influencing, involving all life, air, water and rocks - life is not a passive occupant. That now includes people and all our systems. This is the biological processes principle.
There is vast fluxing, cascading, linking and connectivity involving life, air, water and rocks, and on every scale of both distance and time throughout the Earth System. This is the 'teleconnections' principle.
Abrupt shifts between the Earth's 'modes' is a normal feature and multiple feedbacks and cascades that accumulate to create 'tipping points' play a part in abrupt global change. This is the non-linearities, surprises and thresholds principle.

Earth System Understandings - Some Context

In 2001, IGBP and the other international global-change programmes held a major conference in Amsterdam. The conference produced the historic Amsterdam Declaration on Earth System Science and Earth stewardship. The four understandings (above) form the core of the declaration.

Read it here: http://www.igbp.net/about/history/2001amsterdamdeclarationonearthsystemscience.4.1b8ae20512db692f2a680001312.html

Of the four emergent Earth System properties and understandings, it appears that the concepts of 'modes' and 'tipping points' - for example for the climate system, 'stabilized Earth' mode compared with 'Hothouse Earth' mode and climate tipping points or 'tipping cascades' - are not well addressed in current school Earth Science units, even those which, like Australia's senior secondary curricula, have the stated aim of understanding the 'dynamic Earth', ESS concept. Source: Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene 2018 Steffen et al.

3. About Earth System (Science) Education (ESSE or ESE)

Globally, many or even all primary and high school science curricula include a subject called 'Earth and Space Science' or 'Earth and Environmental Science' and this part of the curriculum can form up to a quarter of a science line each year in each grade (as in Australia), or a whole year out of a rotating cycle of 3 (as in some states in the USA).

In addition, many of these units may mention 'Earth System', some of the 'components' of the Earth System or 'Earth's Systems', for example, the 'climate system'. And while nearly all courses use the ancient device of the two big interacting global 'spheres' - the biosphere and geosphere - to visualise the Earth's natural 'machinery', educators do need guidance so that students understand how it is that the interplay and interlocking of these two 'spheres' occur to make this rocky, watery planet with an atmosphere into the Earth we are part of.

It is also true that school systems using multidimensional science curricula value and aim to develop 'systems thinking' skills for students. Some resources, standards and curricula such as those authored by specialist scientific groups such as the American Geoscience Institute, NOAA, and NASA, have made an excellent start on articulating 'Big Ideas' 'core disciplinary ideas' and trans-discipline 'storylines' (eg US NGSS). These resources give us a hint of what a modern Earth System (Science) Education could look like in classrooms.

In some jurisdictions, for example, Australia, every senior secondary science course includes text that is explicit about why to teach and learn about the Earth System, not just 'about Earth's systems'. This example is from the Biology Senior Secondary curriculum, and similar words are found in the Physics, Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Science curriculum as well:

' ... Students appreciate that biological science provides the basis for decision making in many areas of society and that these decisions can impact the Earth system. They understand the importance of using science to predict possible effects of human and other activity, and to develop management plans or alternative technologies that minimise these effects and provide for a more sustainable future.' ACARA Accessed May 2020.

Over the decades there have been comprehensive Earth System education materials produced but which are unfortunately not always still available or in use. Some are well-archived and maintained and the SERC Earth Exploration Toolbook is a good example. It was a front-runner of the active lab and data-focused Earth System Science-centred approach further developed by Earth Labs, the GLOBE program and also now employed by My NASA Data.

The newly revamped My NASA Data site has a focus on supporting curricula and teachers, with access to a full range of NASA's Earth System Science data, data visualisations, lessons and 'storymaps' being gradually released over the coming year. Hear all about the program from its developers here.

Finally, because Earth System Science underpins all modern local and global sustainability an Earth System Education is a way to both satisfy student interest in sustainability and STEM and help prepare students for the growing numbers of sustainability and STEM careers.

Earth Observations and Sustainability. All this is to say nothing of the revolution in teaching and learning of Geography that has been underway in parallel with the revolution in the field of Earth Observations. Certainly, a 'global literacy' and 'environmental science' approach to teaching the school subjects of Geography and Earth Science has been advocated as a way to improve science education for a long time, well before the four ESS biophysical understandings were able to be articulated. For example, NASA's GLOBE citizen science and data mapping program was established in 1995 (and if you search the site today for 'Why study the Earth System' you will have over a thousand quality hits). Well-known environmental education pioneer Vic Meyer was advocating for many years, well before his editorial on the field in 1997. Then, following a detailed 2007 assessment of the field's status (60 pp pdf here), in 2015 the US Department of Commerce' National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a direction-setting 20 year Education Strategic Plan with the Earth System concept at its core - and a set of education goals focussed on scientific literacy, future work, disaster preparedness and sustainability. (40 pp pdf here).

Being a work in progress, school Earth and Environment and Earth Science subjects are not yet explicitly Earth System education, but they could be. What science and STEM educators currently do, especially in the subject 'Earth and Space Science', could easily become Earth System Education - they share some of the same content, concepts and much of the same educational approach, especially fieldwork and phenomenological demonstrations. However, there are important differences as well. For example, where Earth System education emphasis connections and interplays between the geosphere and the biosphere, traditional Earth Science education relies almost entirely on the '4-spheres' approach. So even though in reality all the spheres - lithosphere (rocks), hydrosphere (waters), cryosphere (ice), atmosphere (air) and biosphere (life) all endlessly interact over vast scales of distance and time, and form tipping points and undergo change, nonetheless, in spite of that, in Earth science units students today still learn the most detail about the rocks, ie the lithosphere. In this sense, the sciences of Geology can appear to almost fully though incorrectly 'conflate' with modern Earth Science. You can see this in any example of a typical tertiary Earth Science textbook, or teacher background resources, such as the International Geoscience Education Union's Exploring Geoscience Across the Globe (free download) and its appendix the International Geoscience Syllabus.

From a geochemical and geophysical geology perspective like this, teaching and learning about the hydrosphere is taught to only relate to the erosion of the lithosphere, the biosphere can seem mainly a 'passenger', along for the ride on the lithosphere, and incidentally, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere can seem to be important mainly for the local weather and weathering of the lithosphere. Though well-intended, and understandable, given the revolution in science represented by the theory of plate tectonics, and the known high-quality student engagement obtained through traditional Geology, a geology-first approach nonetheless does not necessarily do justice to the Earth System, nor explain its important emergent properties and phenomena, such as tipping points and alternate modes. To be fair, this is still fairly new science!

Earth Science Literacy. Another approach known as 'Earth Science Literacy' has been well-developed by the American Geosciences Institute through collaborations between teachers and scientists over the last 20 years and has also been influential in designing new national curricula. There are specific science literacy frameworks for Earth; Atmosphere; Ocean and Climate. These are all useful documents that do to a large extent fill past gaps in Earth Science teaching and learning, and feature an Earth System approach, touching on if not explicitly elaborating on all four emergent Earth System properties. It will be interesting to see these education documents be updated now that ESS findings on each of the Planetary Boundaries and their tipping points are progressing so rapidly. Watch videos for all nine of the Earth Science Literacy Initiatives 'big ideas' here - it is very useful that the audio script is the same as the 'Principles' document including the supporting concepts. American Geosciences Institute youtube channel here.

Earth Science Literacy Initiative (2009) does a good job of elaborating on the big ideas in Earth Science, even including a version of each of the core emergent properties of the Earth System. For example, big idea 3.7 is: "Changes in part of one system can cause new changes to that system or to other systems, often in surprising and complex ways. These new changes may take the form of “feedbacks” that can increase or decrease the original changes and can be unpredictable and/or irreversible. A deep knowledge of how most feedbacks work within and between Earth’s systems is still lacking." and big idea 3.8 is "Earth’s climate is an example of how complex interactions among systems can result in relatively sudden and significant changes. The geologic record shows that interactions among tectonic events, solar inputs, planetary orbits, ocean circulation, volcanic activity, glaciers, vegetation, and human activities can cause appreciable, and in some cases rapid, changes to global and regional patterns of temperature and precipitation."

Education for Sustainability is also not ESE, but it too is also related. For schools offering courses that use an 'education for sustainability' (EfS) approach to integrating sciences and social sciences, it is already quite natural to place understanding the Earth, and even participating in its conservation and restoration, at the centre of the school curriculum. This helps integrate all the areas of a Natural Science course, not just Earth and Space Science . . . and, often, also pairs well with Geography. But, it is worth considering if, even for those schools not using EfS approaches and not featuring active school STEM-sustainability programs, ESE is a useful, engaging or even perhaps a better way to learn and teach science and STEM skills.

Geography may be leading the way. Some of what geography and civics educators currently do - especially in 'Global Learning' - is also a part of Earth System Education. A new emerging amalgamation of Science and Geography - #GEOSTEM - could encompass much or all of ESE, be highly visual, active and engaging, and communicate Earth System understandings to good effect. More on this soon!

ESE Development and Educational Research. What does education literature say about the content, instructional design, features, benefits and challenges of ESE? There are many questions we can ask to further develop and hone Earth Science curricula and resources so that students develop an understanding of the Earth System. For example, we can ask:

To what extent do various national guiding documents, where they exist, sufficiently guide teachers and students to not only use the Earth as the ultimate 'classroom-with-no walls' but also to really understand the emergent properties of the Earth System?
Do our units foreground learning of the four fundamental understandings of the Earth System, especially the tipping points and modes concepts, which to a large degree cause so much public confusion?
In some places the Earth Science Big Ideas are fairly well articulated but what are the various age-appropriate ways to develop student understanding of these 'BigPicture' emergent properties?
How well do we model how scientists and geographers develop and rely on expertise while at the same time drawing on all areas of the sciences to understand the Earth? And how do we ensure that the traditional Earth Science concepts of the airy, rocky, watery and living 'spheres' help, not hinder, student understanding of the 'new' way of looking at the Earth, the Earth System, science that brings us that new way and how to understand and respond to the Earth's needs?
And many more!

Unfortunately, searching the online educational literature for 'Earth System' and 'Earth System Science', to find either impact testing or development of concepts and instructional innovations, gives remarkably few leads and these are scattered over quite a few decades.

Starting with the synthesis type reports, the standout reference document is focussed on understanding which 'revolutionary Earth system science' concepts and areas are well covered in education (in the US), as well as those that are not. The aim was to 'establish a baseline of understanding that, in turn, can inform the development of a blueprint for revising and strengthening Earth system science standards over the next decade' 'Revolutionizing Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century, Report and Recommendations from a 50-State Analysis of Earth Science Education Standards' by Martos Hoffman and Daniel Barstow Daniel, 2007 under the Teaching Earth Research Centre (TERC) banner with funding from NOAA. This review looked at four over-arching criteria – what they consider the 'key elements of “revolutionary” Earth science education':1. Earth as a dynamic interactive system, 2. Space-age perspective, 3. 21st-century technology; 4. Inquiry-based approaches and an additional three criteria relating specifically to NOAA’s strategic domains: 5. Ocean literacy; 6. The atmosphere, weather and climate; 7. Environmental literacy.

In 2014 Nir Orion and 'geocognition' expert Julie Libarkin wrote a synthesis report as Chapter 24 Earth System Science Education in the authoritative Handbook of Research on Science Education, eds Lederman and Abell, Vol 2, 2014. This handbook is a comprehensive review which references the National Science Foundation (USA) 'Earth Science Literacy' framing and asks what are the goals and occurrence of ESE globally, as well as the status of research and assessment in ESE. A large section addresses the extent o which the US NGSS science curriculum has incorporated ESE and what is known about misconceptions that appear in teaching and learning the Earth System, as well as some of the opportunities for using ESE to address these. For example 'deep time' and the concept of a 'changing Earth' are some of the obvious teaching challenges. More here: https://scied.ucar.edu/atmospheric-science-literacy-framework and http://www.earthscienceliteracy.org/index.html (More here from Julie Libarkin on geocognition soon, we hope)

Between 2003 and 2008 Orit Ben-Zvi Assaraf and Nir Orion published 'System Thinking Skills at the Elementary School Level', and 'Development of System Thinking Skills in the Context of Earth System Education'. Their approach was to use the hydrological cycle as a case study, but these authors advocate for ESE on the basis that their studies show that general capabilities and 'future skills' are developed through learning to use 'Big Ideas', 'Systems Thinking' and STEM problem-solving skills, even in junior secondary students, through their ESE approach. For example, following ES instruction students were shown to be able to do a range of high-difficulty things better than before instruction, including identifying relationships among system components, understanding the cyclic nature of processes, and correctly assessing magnitude. The authors also make the point that as environmental literacy is a strong and growing focus in science curricula globally ESE should be one way to add robustness to curricula, in a way that goes well beyond popular actions like 'recycling and cleaning up the schoolyard'. The challenges of ESE, on the other hand, are that more robust systems approach such as ESE is not necessarily of itself any more engaging for less engaged students, which depends more on other factors.

Global change within systems that directly affect people, or which are threatened, or urgent, and yet also widely debated or misunderstood, provide an interesting window into how students engage with and learn in ESS. A perfect example is the global climate system. Climate is a natural and obvious place to start a study of the Earth System with the atmosphere as its initial focus. This facet of Earth System education and learning is also now very widely studied by educators - though it is not tagged ESSE - and 'climate literacy' guidance is quite long-established too. However, it is interesting and a bit concerning that even though like the general public students express alarm or concern about climate change, there is still widespread confusion among students and teachers regarding the functioning of the Earth's climate system. This includes misunderstanding the scientific basis for urgency to safeguard the climate system (ie climate system tipping points. This indicates that educators should, as well as fostering ethics and skills, still put careful professional effort into also developing and 'proving' effective concept inventories and instructional approaches. One recent example of a newly revised and tested climate system concept inventory, narrative and matching educational technology (in this case a set of SEGs, about to be piloted in classrooms in the last half of 2020) is found in CO2peration – Structuring a 3D interactive digital game to improve climate literacy in the 12-13-year-old age group by Harker-Schuch et al, Computers & Education, Volume 144, January 2020, 103705.

Some ESE authors report that student misconceptions about the Earth System can arise just as much from a concept's supposedly inherent conceptual difficulty and teaching gaps as from the difficulty teachers have finding ways to explain and visualise complex large scale processes - traditional unit or instructional design and teaching tools simply may not easily lend themselves to it. On the other hand, is it possible that an ESSE approach can uniquely overcome that - for example can the complexity inherent in ESS somehow be harnessed to enable more sophisticated storytelling and more memorable narratives? The field seems ripe for exploration and development eg with new approaches, refined concept maps, more sophisticated narratives and appropriate use of educational technology.

4. Lenses, approaches, activities, sites and examples of current Earth System Education

So, are there any really excellent ESE resources, published national or state guides, units or even ES-centred curricula we can use? To find out we are compiling an ongoing catalogue of examples of ESE and actively connecting with educators and institutions with the mission to do Earth Science, Geoscience and ESS, and education for these sciences.

US Review. As well as doing a good job of articulating the 'call to action' and science education context there is a really useful list of exemplary 'standards' for each of the criteria studied in 'Revolutionizing Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century, Report and Recommendations from a 50-State Analysis of Earth Science Education Standards' by Martos Hoffman and Daniel Barstow Daniel, 2007.

NGSS The K-12 Earth and Space (Dimension 3) chapter in the US' Next Generation Science Standards (ie NGSS) science curriculum is worth having, as is the whole framework document, link to the framework and chapters here. However, noting that as good as they are, and though developed in collaboration with scientists, the NGSS framework does not as yet explicitly address the four core ES understandings - for example, a word search for 'tipping points' yields no hits. However, since the NGSS teaching and learning approach is based on both inquiry and phenomenon, teachers using the framework are in theory well-equipped to include the newer Earth System concept of 'tipping points' and 'modes' in their Earth and Space science classrooms, even with the existing not-quite-there content descriptions. A careful reading of the Earth Science Literacy Initiative documents, which do quite a good job of articulating the Earth System properties, would be a suitable guidance document for US educators.

One Strange Rock The National Geographic series from 2018 One Strange Rock (OSR) and many of the BBC Earth series all do a good job of demonstrating the power of all-encompassing Earth System style narratives - vast, sweeping, enabling a viewer to move between scales of time and distance, getting the interactions right, the delicate balance of tipping points right, and simplifying complex ideas just enough to be both accurate and memorable, as well as being very engaging. OSR in particular both discusses and deploys a lot of 'Earth gazing' and generates a kind of armchair version of the Overview Effect (Vimeo: Frank White, 1987 Website: Overview Institute) - that cognitive shift or shock often experienced by astronauts who have seen the Earth from Space. (OSR and OSR curriculum resources come close and are full of useful components, but nonetheless do not explicitly address 'Earth System', yet)

ESE and technology in education - Serious Educational Games SEGs, VR, AR and scientific visualisations like NASA's animations and videos - especially when skilfully scripted to include nature and being outdoors, can enable additional or unusual learning effects apart from engagement and assessable understanding in the usual sense ... they can also generate powerful emotional and social experiences, promote awe and wonder .... and even foster gratitude. Storytelling based on concise coherent and tested effective narratives also enables stories to be shared, and when it comes to actively caring for the whole Earth System or just one part of it, sharing these stories is sharing explanations and understandings, and is a valuable action in itself.

Citizen science combined with educational technology and ESS, especially with genuine scientific collaboration, is another well-established approach. A good example of this is the NASA GLOBE program. The GLOBE documents 'Earth as a System Learning Activities', and Introduction - Why study Earth System Science are worthwhile and probably the best teacher-friendly if not classroom-ready Earth System-as-a-whole resources available today. This comes with the proviso that though 'global', it is still somewhat US-centric, and with the same proviso that applies to nearly all the resources to date that used 'as is' these resources do not set out to explicitly develop student understanding of the four emergent Earth System properties.

One of the essential features of programs where students collaborate with scientists is that it ensures students see that expertise is necessary and can be developed by them and their peers. Collaboration across fields is vital, but should never be thought of as a substitute for subject and technology expertise.

The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment.

Traditional senior secondary and college 'Earth and Environmental Science' courses are also being updated with at least some of the modern Earth System Science essential understandings and their applications, for example including Planetary Boundaries. One example is the 35 videos in the 'AP Environmental Science' series at Paul Andersen's Bozeman Science. They're good resources for teachers professional learning too, and some are even good for primary and junior secondary students as well. (again, the emergent Earth System properties are not necessarily explicitly taught, yet, though there is a fair discussion of the concept of feedback in some videos and how feedback leads to both 'equilibrium' and abrupt mode change, eg here in video 2).

Video 1 in the 'AP Environmental Science' series at Paul Andersen's Bozeman Science.

Earth Science Week - We absolutely love Geology! As one of the world's largest annual science education events, it's worth aiming for Earth Science Week to do a good job of building an understanding of both Geology and the Earth System as a whole, merged together to form a truly inclusive and holistic version of 'Geoscience' and 'Earth Science'. Visit the Earth Science Week website and list of instructional guides here. View the AGI Earth Science Week youtube channel here.

Tertiary ES Course Design - Guidance documents for those needing to create entry-level geoscience and Earth System science courses, eg for Education and science communication degrees, seem a bit few and far between, but here is one, it is through the excellent Science Education Resource Centre @Carleton College. The Australian National University is also currently developing its existing 'Blue Planet - An Introduction to Earth System Science' subject into a fully accessible interactive online and workshop resource for teachers at all levels - watch this space.

Geoscience Australia - We will add the new Earth Observation teaching and learning resources the minute they are ready!

Australian Academy of Science - During 2020 we are auditing all the content in the Academy's wonderfully rich and well-tested Primary and Junior Secondary teaching and learning resources from an 'Earth System, environment and sustainability education' perspective. We think there are plenty of ways in which teaching and learning Earth System supports the Australian national curriculum (not just in Science) ... watch this space.

Journal of Geoscience Education - the journal of the (US) National Association of Geoscience Teachers. If you can, get a full copy of volume 54 (2006) of the journal, this whole edition is a review of many levels of courses available as of 2006. Summarised in this article here, 'Symphony of the Spheres: Perspective on Earth System Science Education'. Eugene C. Rankey & Martin Ruzek (2006) Journal of Geoscience Education, 54:3, 197-201, DOI: 10.5408/1089-9995-54.3.197

Earth School by TED-ED - "a month of daily adventures – or Quests – that will help you understand and celebrate our natural world, while learning about how dependent we are on our planet." Probably not explicitly Earth System, but it is the latest resource devoted to Earth and Environmental Science, and it is beautiful, engaging, well-structured, teacher-friendly and well-researched - take a look.

As we find them, we will keep adding more resources to this page and mentioning their main features. Hopefully, you find this useful. Have a great link to share? Please send to aaeeact@gmail.com and we will add it. Like to join in the ESE conversation and share resources and insights as we all learn? Head over to the AAEE Facebook Group Earth System: SDGs, Planetary Boundaries and Earth Obs - an AAEE SIG

Environmental Educators Network ACT

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The First Australian Nature Journaling Conference Brisbane May 2024

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Earth System Education 2020 - A Review