Skip to main content

Designing Earth’s future

In new KEDtalk, ASU professor discusses how innovation is distinct human tool that can be used to design the future we want


Earth
|
September 26, 2017

Two profound changes have shaped the Earth. One happened about 2 billion years ago when our atmosphere became flooded with oxygen and made way for life as we know it.

The other change is happening right now.

“It’s us,” says Ariel Anbar. “It’s what we humans are doing to the planet.”

But this is not another message of the doom and gloom humans have wrought on the Earth. Anbar, President’s Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and director for the Center for Education Through Exploration, is decidedly optimistic. 

In his KEDtalk, Anbar shows us how innovation is a distinct human tool that can be harnessed to design the future we want to see. Along the way he traces the unlikely arc of his career from studying ancient rocks looking for oxygen to creating video games that challenge conventional wisdom about learning.

Anbar's talk is part of the ASU KEDtalks series. Short for Knowledge Enterprise Development talks, KEDtalks aim to spark ideas, indulge curiosity and inspire action by highlighting ASU scientists, humanists, social scientists and artists who are driven to find solutions to the universe’s grandest challenges. Tune in monthly to research.asu.edu/kedtalks to discover how the next educational revolution will come about, whether space is the next economic frontier and more.

More Science and technology

 

Inside pages of book with an illustration of people doing different tasks around a house

ASU author puts the fun in preparing for the apocalypse

The idea of an apocalypse was once only the stuff of science fiction — like in “Dawn of the Dead” or “I Am Legend.” However these days, amid escalating global conflicts and the prospect of a nuclear…

ASU student Henry Nakaana holding a petri dish and a dropper and wearing lab gear.

Meet student researchers solving real-world challenges

Developing sustainable solar energy solutions, deploying fungi to support soils affected by wildfire, making space education more accessible and using machine learning for semiconductor material…

Tiffany Ticlo wearing a dress, her Miss Arizona sash and crown, sits at a desk in front of a classroom, pointing to a presentation screen.

Miss Arizona, computer science major wants to inspire children to combine code and creativity

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable spring 2024 graduates. “It’s bittersweet.” That’s how Tiffany Ticlo describes reaching this milestone. In May, she will graduate…