Abstract
Global Systems Science (GSS) is an interdisciplinary course for high school students that emphasizes how scientists from a wide variety of fields work together to understand significant problems of global impact. The Teacher’s Guide to Global Systems Science provides an overview of the entire series and makes recommendations for how a course in this subject can be structured and presented. It is strongly recommended that teachers consult that guide before beginning a GSS course for their students. The Teachers’ Guide to GSS suggests that every course using this series begin with the unit A New World View, which introduces the entire field of global systems science, and presents four key ideas that thread through the entire series: First, the Earth has tremendously diverse environments, yet it is a single planet that we all call “home.” Second, we can better understand the Earth if we think of it in terms of systems. Third, everything is connected to everything else. And fourth, the goal of global studies is to find out what we can do to sustain life on Planet Earth—now and in the generations to come. A New World View can be followed by any other units in the series, depending on the purpose and context for the entire program.
