UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A spring 2022 graduate seminar focusing on Earth systems will draw on the experiences of William Easterling’s four-year appointment at the National Science Foundation, where he served as the assistant director and head of the Directorate for Geosciences. The seminar, GEOG 530 Human-Environment Interactions, also is open to advanced undergraduates.
Earth system science is an approach to understanding how the planet operates as a single, complex adaptive system driven by the diverse interactions among energy, matter and organisms, especially including humans. The seminar will explore the power of the Earth system approach to understanding dynamic change that is altering the sustainability of the biosphere across scales and ecosystems. It will particularly focus on the tight coupling of human activity with changes in Earth’s life support system, including, for example, how humans are directly and indirectly changing Earth’s biogeochemical cycles creating feedbacks on human welfare.
“The seminar is really going to focus on bringing humans into the Earth system as opposed to putting them a separate little box outside of what is usually viewed as the elements of the Earth system,” Easterling said. “The seminar will do a deep dive into the many ways in which human activity interacts with the dynamic Earth system, both over long and short timescales across large and small spatial scales.”
At the NSF, Easterling led a directorate of three divisions and a major office — Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, Earth Sciences, Ocean Sciences, and the Office of Polar Programs. While there he commissioned a National Academies study to investigate what steps would be needed for the NSF to create a unified vision of Earth system science. The seminar will include readings, among many others, from the National Academies report, "Next Generation Earth Systems Science at the National Science Foundation."
Easterling, professor of geography and Earth system science, is an expert on how climate change will affect Earth’s food supply. Easterling served as director of Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment from 2001 to 2007 and dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences from 2007 to 2017. His appointment at NSF ended on June 30, 2021.
The three-credit class will meet on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in 319 Walker Building. More information about the seminar is available here.