On "Earth Sciences And Public Schools" - American Geophysical Union

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Volume 87, Number 47, 21 November 2006

EDIT

Underlying this mindset is an implicit belief in the primacy of the physical sciences.
A corollary is that Earth sciences do not have an independent existence within
human knowledge, but exist merely as an adjunct to physical-mathematical sciences.
Given sufficient time, and bigger computers, it is believed, science can and will know
everything there is to know about the Earth. This perception probably has an influence
on school administrators who feel that students need a demanding curriculum, comprising
rigorous training in the physical sciences.

It is true that imparting instructions in mathematics and physics is demanding. It is
also necessary, though, to recognize that training the mind to ‘read’ rocks, the landscape,
the animals, and the plants can be equally demanding and fascinating. For
example, the remarkable contributions of James Hutton (who surmised that the Earth
must be so old as to be timeless), Charles Darwin (who estimated that the Earth must
be as old as 300 million years), Thomas Chamberlain (who suspected that there
must be some source of heat within the Earth, perhaps tied up with the atoms), and
Alfred Wegener (who argued persuasively for continental drift) stemmed from intrinsic
curiosity about the Earth, rather than from the processes responsible for shaping it. Our
ability to solve well-defined problems and the gift for connecting seemingly disparate
ideas both are part of our astonishing human psyche. The challenge of precollege
education is to strike a balance between the two. One part of the training consists of providing
students with a critical quantum of information, tools, and methods. Another
part consists of nourishing their ability to think, make sense, and figure out the world
around them.

Human knowledge includes physical sciences and Earth sciences as parts of a larger
whole. This is the spirit of a liberal education. Over the past few decades, we have
learned enough to conclude that the Earth is a very complex system with myriad intricately
linked components. We are also learning that we face a greater challenge of
adapting to the constraints of a finite Earth than of developing new technologies to
control it. Important social decisions of the future likely will test our ability as citizens to
make difficult judgments on matters that defy quantification but are subject to ‘values.’

It seems reasonable to conclude that the future of Earth science education in our
public schools will depend upon whether we consider our Earth and environment to
be deserving of comprehension in their own right, or whether we believe that technology,
combined with market forces, renders Earth science education dispensable.

—T. N. NARASIMHAN, University of California,
Berkeley; E-mail: [e-mail]

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[NNadir]

1. I have always felt that I know too little about earth sciences.

Lord Kelvin's angst about the source of geothermal energy played an important role in physics, of course and the earth sciences have been central to human knowledge in many other ways.

Basically I was done with in in 9th grade, though, and that's regrettable.

[YankeyMCC]

2. I've been thinking about this a lot lately

Earth Science classes would be an excellent opportunity to get students out into their local area, learn about the land they live on, make a connection, and understand the impact of the community they are part of on that land.

[phantom power]

3. I once took a topology class with a geologist.

She was taking topology because she thought it might increase her spatial intuition, so as to help her interpret the multiple geologic events that lead up to a landscape.

It's all about the Fundamental Interconnectedness Of All Things.