Geoscience education: Changing paradigms

There is a wide gap between the importance of Earth science (or geoscience) for humankind's quality and ability of life and the current, low profile of the educational potential of Earth science in school systems. The marginalized status of Earth Science Education (ESE) is evident in the multitude of environmental challenges confronting humanity. Global warming is more an educational crisis than a climate crisis. Over the last 30 years, research in Earth science education has laid a robust theoretical foundation and developed practical strategies and techniques for effective teaching of Earth science in K-12 education. However, the quality of this research, and the growing need for knowledge in Earth science, have yet to do much to improve the profile of ESE in schools worldwide. Only genuine paradigm shifts in educational perceptions and attitudes of the geoscience community will enable the narrowing of the disturbing gap presented above. The following are the required paradigm shifts: (1) Changing the attitudes of geoscientists toward their role in society and the adoption of geoethically values; (2) understanding that ESE is one of the top geoethics values and the geoscience community has to build a scientific pressure group for introducing the earth sciences as an integral part of schools' science curricula from K-12; (3) moving from the reductionist paradigm toward the holistic Earth systems approach; (4) understanding that teaching is about something other than information transmission, in fact teaching is a profession that involves the ability to stimulate the embedded human learning instinct; (5) moving from environmental awareness to environmental insight; (6) moving from the essentialism-based teaching culture toward the learning instinct paradigm.