Earth System Science: What is it?

Since World War II, the explosion in scientific knowledge naturally led many scientists and educators, to specialize in one discipline or another. Even within a scientific discipline, such as ecology, now called environmental studies, there were many specializations. Some include water ecology, habitat studies, population studies, etc. After a half century, the over-emphasis on specialization became so pronounced, that many believed that integration among various scientific disciplines must be established anew.

This integration is most pronounced in the scientific disciplines representing any part of studies of the Earth, namely Geology, hydrology, meteorology, biology and others. A new integrated Earth Science discipline, referred to as Earth System Science, was created. The push for this integration with Earth Science was promoted most actively by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA).

In most scientific and education quarters, it is now recognized that people can understand how the Earth works and how we interact with the Earth, if we teach the subject in a more project based manner. Earth Science teachers are encouraged to include all the systems of the Earth in their classes. If Earth Science teachers have a greater understanding of the various spheres of the living and nonliving parts of the Earth as a system, they can effectively explain and teach Earth System Science.

To encourage you to have a basic understanding of the Earth System Science as a scientific discipline, I have included an Earth System Science WebSlide.

Choosiness, Cooperativeness Historically Linked

This is an scientific abstract from a research group who is studying the effect of choosing to be associated with people who cooperate and the ways that this cooperation can encourage others to choose them.
It's too bad that Nature magazine couldn't have been more COOPERATIVE and released this research a free article, then more of us would have access to it and could CHOOSE to learn more about Nature and its parent organization.
Hmm! Maybe that is the point the staff at Nature is choosing not to cooperate with the "great unwashed", so we will not choose to cooperate or even try to learn more about them. Maybe they fear the loss of their exclusivity?

clipped from www.nature.com The coevolution of choosiness and cooperation Correspondence to: Lutz Fromhage3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to L.F. (Email: lutzfromhage@web.de). Explaining the rise and maintenance of cooperation is central to our understanding of biological systems1, 2 and human societies3, 4. When an individual's cooperativeness is used by other individuals as a choice criterion, there can be competition to be more generous than others, a situation called competitive altruism5. evolution of cooperation between non-relatives can then be driven by a positive feedback between increasing levels of cooperativeness and choosiness6 in a situation where individuals have the opportunity to engage in repeated pairwise interactions, the equilibrium degree of cooperativeness depends critically on the amount of behavioural variation that is being maintained in the population by processes such as mutation. important role of lifespan in the evolution of cooperation.