Additional Background for Educators: Let's Talk about Sustainability

Students can reference the examples on the poster to provide a context for learning.

For example, SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy is linked to Chapter 4: Oceans, Wind, Weather, and Climate. To learn more about SDG 7, students are prompted to read a StoryMap on how Tajikistan has worked to achieve this SDG by developing renewable energies. As students learn about ocean and atmospheric circulation, they can also learn how the energy that drives these processes can be harnessed to produce electricity.

The SDG 7 StoryMap also discusses how changes in climate have affected glaciers in Tajikistan, which ultimately has an impact on water flow and their ability to harness energy from hydropower.

This context can help students relate to the material and understand real-world applications of concepts. Additionally, new features have been added to the textbook to continuously support students in making connections between Earth & Space science concepts and sustainability.

NEW Sustainability Features in the EarthComm Textbook

• An introduction to sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been added to the book’s introductory material, offering a foundational understanding of global sustainability challenges as they relate to Earth & Space Science.
• Specific Targets and Indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been highlighted, demonstrating how understanding Earth & Space Science concepts can contribute to achieving these goals.
• “Considering Sustainability” sidebars have been added throughout the chapters to keep sustainability and real-world applications of concepts at the forefront of students’ minds as they engage with the content in each chapter (Figure 2).
• Revised “Earth/Space Sciences at Work” pages for each chapter relate the learning to updated sets of careers, the SDGs, and Earth systems, helping educators and students draw clear links between academic concepts, career pathways, and how Earth & Space sciences help people address real-world issues.
• In the Teacher’s Edition (TE), teaching tips on integrating sustainability into the curriculum have been provided, offering guidance on how to incorporate sustainability into classroom discussions and activities.
• The EarthComm support site has been updated to include resources related to all new sustainability-related additions to the textbook.

Figure 2. An example of a new Considering Sustainability sidebar from the 4th Edition of EarthComm. These questions help students connect the content of each chapter to sustainability concerns.

In addition to adding sustainability, EarthComm was also revised to include the latest data, real-world examples, and resources.

Updates to the Content in the EarthComm Textbook

• Data tables, graphs, maps, and other visualizations have been updated to include recent information, ensuring that students are exposed to current data and trends in Earth science (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Updates to the Fourth Edition of EarthComm include new information and related data and images, such as this image that is a composite of data from the James Webb and Chandra X-Ray Observatory Telescopes, offering a new view of our universe (Credit: NASA).

• Recent real-world examples of phenomena and technologies have been incorporated into the content, offering students up-to-date, relevant case studies to reinforce the concepts being taught.
• The flow of passages has been smoothed for readability, enhancing the overall clarity and ease of understanding for students, making the text passages more approachable and easily understood by a wider range of learners.
• Additional images have been included to directly support the text and provide visual context, as well as to indicate sources of images, ensuring that students understand the origin and credibility of visual materials.
• The EarthComm support website has been updated to include additional online resources related to the content in each chapter section, especially new examples, data sets, and sustainability-related material that has been added to the book.
• An updated view of the Earth on the cover is accompanied by a description of illustration that brings to light the interconnectedness of Earth’s systems:

"The cover illustration might focus your eyes on a slice through our planet. In fact, the image has been carefully designed by a scientific artist to make you think about the Earth system. Earth’s interior is colored and shaded to indicate that this massive part of the geosphere is divided into regions with different temperatures, structures, and movements. Notice the thin transition from Earth’s inhospitable interior through the crust to the surface with its familiar continents and oceans. Here we find Earth’s living realm, the biosphere... Relationships between geology, geography, climate, and the distribution of ecosystems underscore interactions that are essential to studying Earth as a system.”

The new fourth edition of EarthComm is designed to engage students, support educators, and connect Earth science to global challenges. With updated data and examples, connections to real-world sustainability issues, and corresponding support resources for these new components, EarthComm helps make Earth & Space Science more accessible and more relevant than ever.

About the Author: Lindsay Mossa

Lindsay Mossa spent 15 years as a high school science educator in New York and Maryland before becoming an Education Specialist at the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). Throughout her career, Lindsay has written curriculum for multiple high school science courses, incorporating both NGSS and state-specific standards. She also has extensive experience designing and delivering teacher professional development sessions, which she has presented at national conferences (NSTA and the National Marine Educators Association [NMEA]), in webinars for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), as well as at AGI’s annual Teaching and Learning Academy.

During AGI’s partnership with Activate Learning, Lindsay has helped to revise the EarthComm textbook and develop support materials for teachers to be able to use sustainability as a context for student learning. She currently maintains the support website for EarthComm, ensuring a comprehensive and up-to-date collection of resources to support teacher and student use of the textbook.

Lindsay earned a B.A. in Biology and Secondary Education from the University of New York at Geneseo, and an M.S. in Educational Technology from Walden University.

© 2025 Activate Learning. Not for resale, redistribution, or use other than classroom use without permission.

*  *  *  *  *

Related Posts: