Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms
From wire service reports
Read more by staff and wire services reports
Climate change has joined evolution as another flashpoint in the debate over science education in U.S. public schools.
A flash point has emerged in American science education that echoes the battle over evolution, as scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools.
Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.
Last May, the school board of Los Alamitos, Calif., passed a measure, later rescinded, identifying climate science as a controversial topic that required special instructional oversight.
“Any time we have a meeting of 100 teachers, if you ask whether they’re running into pushback on teaching climate change, 50 will raise their hands,” said Frank Niepold, climate education coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who meets with hundreds of teachers annually. “We ask questions about how sizable it is, and they tell us it is [sizable] and pretty persistent, from many places: your administration, parents, students, even your own family.”
Against this backdrop, the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, Calif.-based watchdog group that supports the teaching of evolution through advocacy and educational materials, announced on Jan. 16 that it will launch an initiative to monitor the teaching of climate science and evaluate the sources of resistance to it.
schellekensr
January 19, 2012 at 6:24 pm
As with evolution, “scientists” are unable to make reproducable experiments.
As with evolution, “scientists” have set parameters about past circumstances based on presuppositions.
As with evolution, “scientists” have ‘black listed’ those who disagree with them, without the willingness to even entertain the possibility those who argue for the oppositie site just might be right.
rzienta
January 19, 2012 at 6:41 pm
The biggest problem with Climate change is within the scientific community itself. Unfortunately, political ideology drove most of the debate and it didn’t help that some of the “scientific evidence” was found to be fraudulent. So, is it any wonder that teachers are reluctant to embrace the concept? It is tiring to continuously sift through “polictical correctness” to get to the “science” of the issue. It just depends on your viewpoint; if you’re a believer, then there is evidence, if not, there is also solid evidence. I suggest it is this battle of wills rather than fact that causes confusion and makes teachers reluctant to teach it. Another point is, OK, so there is climate change, then how can we address the issue? Again, it’s a political football. Our country alone can’t fix the problem, but yet much of the positions is that it is our nation’s fault. Yet many of the developing nations (China) don’t care about fixing the problem. While we reduce our “carbon footprint”, other countries are increasing theirs. Students find the blame game dubious and disingenuous. Again, another reason why teachers are possibly reluctant to join the flock. I used independent study and encouraged students to develop their own opinion after looking at the pros and cons. Interestingly, most were skeptical.
danthescienceman
January 19, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I agree with both positions, but offering it as controversial is good when it forces students to think critically, analyze information and take a stand. I am sooooo glad that I don’t have to teach in an environment that is directed by a school board and all the politics therein.
twiebe
January 19, 2012 at 8:21 pm
That climate change occurs is a given, the issue is what is causing it. There are many theories: solar flares, electromagnetic flux, increased use of petroleum products, increased volcanic activities. Our students need to approach the problem using scientific investigation, to do that they need to be able to look at data, interpret data and draw a conclusion/opinion from the data. Most of my students are skeptical because the data they are finding is not supported by the politcal rhetoric that is presented to them on the evening news.
ecross
January 19, 2012 at 8:38 pm
The problem is not one of evidence. It is one of presentation. I can only agree with the previous posters regarding one topic, the hype.
I do not blame environmental groups and those concerned with the status of the planetary system for trying to make the general public aware. I do blame them for overwhelming us with a persistent mantra with little explanation.
If one were to actually sift through the science and read the conclusions carefully it is not hard to find that the evidence does implicate human activities.
This really has more to do with the scientific community’s inability to talk clearly with the lay public. Enhancing this problem is the lay public’s inability to focus on anything more than a sound byte as well as the pervasive feeling of ineptitude.
Lastly, I point to the issue of ozone depletion in the stratosphere to illustrate the fact that human activities can have global consequences. I find it curious that no one argues about this at all, but then again I guess all we had to do was give up hairspray propelled with CFC’s.
rlburtner
January 19, 2012 at 11:42 pm
First of all I do not know of any scientist who denies that climate has been changing. Therefore the question posed by Meris Stansbury has been improperly framed. The question is what is the cause of the climate change and warming that has been observed . Is it primarily due to man or is it due to natural processes of which there are many. Therefore, if anthropogenic global warming is taught as part of the scientific curriculum, then other hypotheses that are also based on solid scientific evidence must also be taught. All scientists agree that climate is constantly changing and that there has been a fraction of a degree of warming in the last century. Several scientific hypotheses exist regarding the reason for the warming. The addition of CO2 to the atmosphere by man is only one of several reasonable hypotheses. The most reasonable and likely causes are natural processes that have been responsible for warming throughout geologic time. This controversy has nothing in common with the evolution/creation/intelligent design debate.
As a research geologist who has studied the issue in depth and who is not dependent upon government research grants, I have concluded that man and CO2 emitted by him account for only a small, rather insignificant fraction of the warming that we have experienced in the past century. Most of the evidence cited by the warmists/alarmists cannot be uniquely identified with a specific cause such as CO2. Variations in solar irradiance, volcanic emissions, cloud cover, orbital changes, and ocean currents such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation correlate more closely with changes in climate/temperature than the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and temperature are also poorly correlated throughout geologic time. Our understanding of atmospheric and solar processes suggest why this is so. It is generally accepted that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere will result in a 1 degree C increase in temperature. The Earth has been warmer in the last 1000 years than it is now. In fact it has been warmer than today for 90% of the last 10,000 years. Warmer periods correspond to periods of greater human prosperity. Plants are more robust when grown in an atmosphere with more CO2. Therefore we should be glad that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. It is still near a geologic minimum.
computerhead
January 20, 2012 at 10:01 pm
“It’s just a theory” is often heard by those
who know–or care–little about science.
They don’t seem to know what a scientific
theory is: a collection of facts.
I hope they don’t deny Bernoulli’s theory
next time they get on a plane
rmbruckner
January 25, 2012 at 8:54 pm
“They don’t seem to know what a scientific
theory is: a collection of facts.”
…..that are used to project a “conclusion”.
Thats why there is a big difference between a “theory” and a “conclusion” and man-made global warming is still a theory in serach of conclusive hard facts.
jepederson653
January 26, 2012 at 11:01 pm
What “theory” means in general discourse is roughly what “hypothesis” means in the language of science. The act of scientific research is based on the acknowledgement that doesn’t have all the answers; scientists search to learn more, and to examine notions that have already been proposed and examined but not yet independently verified. In science, “theory” comes later than that. It would be a lot easier if science could replace its term “theory” (but not the underlying idea) with a word that did not also have such a different meaning in common speech.
In its posing and examining of hypotheses, its examination of questions only partially answered or never before asked, science acknowledges uncertainty. So does law; juries are asked to determine guilt not with total certainty but “beyond a reasonable doubt.” So do our most important vows; no bride or groom can know the portion of sickness or of health, of richer or of poorer that a marriage will contain.
Certainty is ever elusive. Action that waits for certainty is perpetual inaction. Regarding climate, what are the courses of action we must consider taking to counter each of the plausible explanations of the present degree of climate change? At least there are not so very many plausible explanations. Note that change in the present time surpasses the bounds of the astronomically driven patterns that explain climate change of the deep past, whose evidence is independently found in the pollen record, the ice record, the fossil record, the rest of the sedimentary record. Something more is happening.
How well do we prepare students to act constructively and realistically in the face of the unattainability of certainty? How well do we do ourselves?