Many challenges face science education including: a lack of understanding about how the Earth system works; increasingly complex human-environment interactions and impacts; a rapidly changing, highly competitive world economy; and the global spread of technology and information. To meet these challenges the American Meteorological Society (AMS) introduces cutting-edge Earth system science by providing content-rich professional development courses for K-12 teachers, and licensing undergraduate courses for local college offering. The AMS actively encourages minority participation in the Earth system sciences by reaching out to schools and colleges with high numbers of minority students in their programs. To date, over 100,000 educators and hundreds of thousands of students have improved their environmental literacy by using the unique AMS Education Program courses and materials. Over 200 minority serving colleges have adopted AMS undergraduate courses. Major programmatic funding is provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Navy, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the AMS.
