Solving the Earth-related grand challenges facing society and building a sustainable future requires both an Earth literate public and a workforce that can bring geoscience to bear on tough societal issues. Developing widespread Earth literacy, the InTeGrate program supports learning and teaching about the Earth in the context of societal issues both within geoscience courses and across the undergraduate curriculum. This is done using a systems approach and curriculum design that embraces five guiding principles highlighting interdisciplinary and systems-thinking as well as authentic inquiry. Connecting geoscience education to societal challenges has the potential to increase enrollment in geoscience and allied courses, thus strengthening the field while serving society. However, new curriculum alone is not sufficient to prompt the shift in how Earth education is perceived and practiced that is needed to meet the program goals of a sustainable future.

To develop replicated models of change, the InTeGrate materials and approach have been being implemented by 16 teams from institutions across the US to meet program-scale goals including increasing the participation of students from under-represented groups, including Earth related curriculum in non-geoscience programs and strengthening workforce preparation. Emerging from these implementation programs are common elements and themes that have led to their successes. These programs are in the process of publishing models of ways to bring geoscience to a diverse range of disciplines, institutions, and networks and will provide the documentation and resources necessary to help other groups implement similar programs. Here we will synthesize common elements of successful programs and introduce the published models.