Communicating The Need For Earth Literacy Across The Curriculum

Abstract:

California needs 11 trillion gallons of water to relieve the current drought, according to NASA, and there is 1.5 million tons of debris floating across the Pacific Ocean, a side effect of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan. These are merely two examples of the types of massive, global issues that students in high school and college will face in the coming years and decades.

With an eye towards preparing students to learn the necessary skills to solve these problems head on, The InTeGrate (Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth for a Sustainable Future) project is developing a new breed of teaching materials that can be utilized in general education courses, teacher preparation courses, core courses within geoscience majors, and courses designed for other majors including environmental studies, social science, engineering, and other sciences.

To interest faculty, educators, and students, we must communicate the need for Earth literacy not just to the general public, but also to other educators across disciplinary fields. To this end, the InTeGrate project is utilizing both macro and micro level communication strategies with key stakeholders, partnering organizations, targeted professional development, a variety of social media platforms, and educators across fields and institutional types. This combination allows us to capitalize on personal interactions while linking them into a communication network that can scale.