January 18, 2012: Earth science -- and particularly, climate change -- is the new evolution when it comes to controversy in biology curricula. Like evolution, climate change is accepted by scientists, but questioned by some teachers, parents, students, and administrators.
In response, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), an Oakland-based non-profit, launched a new initiative yesterday to defend the teaching of climate change in schools, according to a report by Sara Reardon for ScienceInsider, the news and policy journal for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott, at left, said, "We consider climate change a critical issue in our own mission to protect the integrity of science education." She added, "Climate affects everyone, and the decisions we make today will affect generations to come. We need to teach kids now about the realities of global warming and climate change, so that they're prepared to make informed, intelligent decisions in the future."
NCSE has hired Mark McCaffrey, at left, a climate and environmental education scientist from The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), a joint institute of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, as its new climate coordinator and appointed Peter Gleick, co-founder and hydroclimatologist at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security to its board of directors.
An online poll in November 2011 by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) found that 54% of respondents encountered global warming scepticism from parents and 26% encountered it from administrators. It also found that many teachers felt unprepared to respond because of a lack of teaching tools. In December, an online survey of 555 K-12 educators who teach climate science found 36% had been influenced to "teach the controversy" and not just teach the science behind climate change.
There is money available to those on the side "teaching the controversy". The Heartland Institute, which questions whether humans cause climate change, sends out free educational materials to teachers and school boards. Teachers, already struggling with shrinking budgets, don't have time to analyze materials, or fend off pressure from students, parents and administrators who are ideologically opposed to human-created climate change.
One of the goals, according to Scott will be to analyze and educate teachers on why these materials are scientifically unsound.
McCaffrey says that NCSE's goal will be to serve as a "clearinghouse" for climate teaching programs. He and Scott say that NCSE has no plans to wade into the politics of the issue: whether cap-and-trade systems are better than switching to nuclear energy, for instance. The line between science and politics is not difficult to draw, Scott believes. "Climate change is being promoted as pro-big government, anticapitalist," she says. "But it has to do with atmospheric chemistry."
NOAA already has a number of training programs available for teachers to learn from NOAA climate scientists, funded by the 2007 America "Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science" (COMPETES) Act:
Climate education, says Frank Niepold, education lead of NOAA's Climate Program Office, is "core stuff, not just a fashionable blip." For science education to work, it has to be to be relevant, he says, and "you can't miss this topic. The student body wants to know."
McCaffrey believes he has his work cut out for him. "We do anticipate the pushback against good climate science will continue if not increase."
Listen to Scott discussing the new initiative on Lab Out Loud, a NSTA podcast for science educators.
Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.
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