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1. Fundamentals
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2. Field Studies
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3. Lifelong Learning
Virtual Classroom
The AGCI classroom is a place to learn about the Earth, how it changes over time, how the air, water, land, and life systems interact, and how humans have become an agent of change on a global scale. You can explore our ever-changing Earth through the six so-called “spheres” that make up the Earth System.
Earth system spheres
The Earth system is the complex network of properties and processes--geographic, physical, chemical, and biological--that interact to shape the world in which we live. The six spheres of the Earth system are the atmosphere (air), geosphere (land and solid earth), hydrosphere (water), cryosphere (ice), biosphere (life), and a subset of the biosphere: the anthroposphere (human life).
Five principles of global environmental change
- Earth's natural systems undergo continual change.
- Earth's systems are linked through interactive processes.
- Recently, humans have become a key agent of change.
- Local changes have global consequences.
- Global environmental change impacts all life.
View this diagram to illustrate the interconnectivity and complexity of the Earth system.
How We Study Global Change
About AGCI
AGCI has become an intellectual proving ground, a ferment for new ideas and concepts, and a place where the different disciplines actually talk, and progress. Hal Harvey
What We Do
AGCI has been the most prominent place for developing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogues between scientists and practitioners.Guy Brasseur
Get Involved
We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims. R. Buckminster Fuller