3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

The Earth we know today is very different from that which scientists debated little more than 100 years ago. While scientists today hold the Earth to be roughly 4.54 billion years old, at the turn of the 20th century there was little agreement about the Earth’s age, and geologists’ estimates did not exceed 100 million years. And while today scientists agree that the continents sit atop lithospheric plates that move and interact, giving rise to volcanoes, earthquakes, mountain ranges, and deep ocean trenches, the Earth of the 19th century was one that was slowly cooling and shrinking. In addition to getting older and less static, the Earth of the 20th century also yielded up some of its uniqueness, as it ceased to be the only planet under the purview of those fields that would collectively become known as the earth and planetary sciences. A Cold War program in planetary exploration of the Moon, Mercury, Mars and Venus extended inquiry into the other rocky bodies of the solar system and placed what was known about the Earth into a broader context. Finally, an environmental movement and the discovery of anthropogenic climate change showed the Earth to be more vulnerable and susceptible to human activities than previously imagined. This course examines our changing view of the Earth and the environment from the 19th century to the present, highlighting the interrelatedness of science, society, and culture. What does it mean when our understanding of the Earth changes?