Factual, Yet Controversial? States resist a mandate to teach about climate change
Should we be teaching facts in our public schools? If so, should these also include controversial, politically relevant scientific facts? Yes, says a new federal policy from the Next Generation Science Standards, aiming to educate public school students about climate change by integrating the topic into science curriculums. Whether this policy will be successfully incorporated nationwide over the next few years, and what should be done about dissenting voices amongst public school teachers, is up for debate.
Only some of our teachers are on board with these new mandates for public education. But is climate change political? Scientists, Democrats, realists, say no. Our public school children, however, have felt the impact of the largely bipartisan debate on the validity of these facts: only 1 in 5 students say they understand climate change from what they’ve learned in school, a study from the National Center for Science Education says.
26 states have already adopted the standards laid out by the NGSS, but states such as Tennessee and Louisiana have put in place protection for teachers who question the facts. Even apart from such legislation, the simple act of politicizing climate change has led to a decrease in teaching any information about the topic at all. Teachers who prefer to stay politically neutral and avoid the subject altogether, often by substituting earth science with biology or chemistry, procrastinate rather than mediate these difficult conversations.
It’s time to change this trend of educational avoidance and accept our responsibility to inform- even if the topic of climate change is a distressing one. Our children and grandchildren have a right to grow up understanding the world they live in, and though climate change has been shunned by certain groups that find the scientific evidence hard to reconcile with their personal beliefs, preserving a state of scientific transparency should be a national imperative. Teachers need to stick to the standards, and teach the reality that is climate change.
“There was never a debate about whether climate change would be in there,” says National Research Council member Heidi Schweingruber, referring to the new NGSS standards, “It’s a fundamental part of science, and that’s what our work is based on, the scientific consensus.” Those who disagree with teaching climate change should not be given the choice to decide- just as children do not get to decide what they want to learn. If we don’t listen to our scientists, how can we get our children to listen to us?
South Dakota has joined the ranks resisting a unanimous decision to teach climate change as the facts present it: Senator Jeff Monroe proposed that teachers should be able to detail the weaknesses of scientific “theories”. Though showing multiple sides to an unsubstantiated claim is both valid and necessary to a complete understanding, climate change and evolution do not fall into that category; opening the door for teachers to question science textbooks based on their personal beliefs could lead to complete disharmony in nationwide curriculums, let alone the rampant influence of personal bias on pre-established, factual lesson plans.
In an interview with Dr. Gerald Skoog, former President of the National Science Teacher’s Association and well-known for his work on teaching evolution, says that “such groups [that oppose teaching evolution] are demanding that various non-scientific ideas be included in the science classroom”. Skoog sheds light on the similarities between climate change and evolution in science education, as “The alternative ‘theories’ that typically serve as the springboard for student and parental questions tend not to be scientific theories because they cannot be tested, they lack explanatory power, and they do not provide the basis for additional research.” Ultimately, the theoretical disagreements powered by political and religious beliefs don’t have the staying power that scientific evidence does.
I long for the day when we can leave controversy out of our classrooms, our scientific discoveries, our religious views. During an era where the validity of science is being openly questioned by our President, and the pending policies attempting to hinder climate change’s effects on our world have a less promising future than ever before, our nationwide objective should be to give our children the information needed to divert this path. An argument used to defend the censorship of climate change in the classroom is that such conversations can be dismal for the average 12-year-old. Schweingruber says that, though children will be learning that humans caused global warming, they will also learn of various positive impacts they can have on our rapidly warming world.
Already, the new generation of schoolchildren will have to deal with more psychological and emotional hurdles than ever before. The only way to temper this is through the incorporation of a consensual, national approach on teaching climate change and its impacts.
