ANTI-NGSS BILL INTRODUCED IN MICHIGAN
House Bill 4972, introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives on September 12, 2013, would, if enacted, require that “[t]he state board model core academic curriculum standards shall not be based on the Next Generation Science Standards.” Additionally, it would prohibit the state board of education and the state department of education from adopting, implementing, or aligning assessments to the NGSS, and prohibit all state officials and agencies from participating in implementing the NGSS.
The bill’s primary sponsor, Tom McMillin (R-District 45), told the Petoskey News-Review (September 18, 2013) that he was primarily worried about “turning over our standards to unelected bodies,” but he and cosponsor Greg MacMaster (R-District 105) also acknowledged their concern about the NGSS’s inclusion of global warming: “It does get into controversial issues such as man-made global warming as fact,” said McMillin. “That’s still somewhat controversial.”
MacMaster, a former meteorologist with a meteorological technical degree in atmospheric science from the Community Colleges of the Air Force, added, “Before introducing humans [as a driver of climate change], they need to take a step back and look at hundreds of millions of years of data to show that humans are behind climate change. No one’s been able to refute my stance or position yet.”
But the Petoskey News-Review asked Christopher Poulsen, a scientist at the University of Michigan who studies paleoclimate and current global climate change, for his opinion, reporting, “Poulsen says that scientists know climate has fluctuated globally because of carbon dioxide over very long periods of time, but the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide over the past century has well outpaced what the natural environment can produce.”
Joseph Krajcik, a professor of teacher education at Michigan State University who helped to develop the NGSS, told the newspaper that the standards don’t teach climate change dogmatically: “If these standards were in any way trying to do something to make our children less intellectual, I would be opposed to them. The question these standards are addressing is, how do they really help our children develop the scientific habits of mind that allow them to exist in this world.”
Michigan, as one of the twenty-six states that collaborated in the development of the NGSS, is committed to giving serious consideration to their adoption. HB 4972 was referred to the House Committee on Education. The bill’s primary sponsor is Tom McMillin (R-District 45); its cosponsors are Bob Genetski (R-District 80), Greg MacMaster (R-District 105), Ken Goike (R-District 33), and Ray Franz (R-District 101).
For the text of HB 4972 as introduced, visit: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/billintroduced/House/htm/2013-HIB-4972.htm For the story in the Petoskey News-Review, visit: http://articles.petoskeynews.com/2013-09-18/next-generation-science-standards_42192403 And for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Michigan, visit: http://ncse.com/news/michiganPOLLING CLIMATE IN OHIO
Seventy percent of Ohioans accept that global warming is happening, according to a new report from the Yale Project on Climate Communication. But slightly less than half accept that human activity is responsible for global warming, and slightly less than half deny that there is a consensus among the scientific community whether global warming is happening.
The poll defined global warming as “the idea that the world’s average temperature has been increasing over the past 150 years, may be increasing more in the future, and that the world’s climate may change as a result.” Asked, “Do you think that global warming is happening, or not?” 70% of respondents answered yes, 16% answered no, and 14% were not sure.
Asked to assume that global warming is happening and asked why, 49% of respondents said that it was caused mostly by human activities, 28% said that it was caused mostly by natural changes in the environment, 9% volunteered that it was caused by both, 8% said none of these because it isn’t happening, and 6% volunteered other answers or were unsure.
Asked about what most scientists think, 43% of respondents said (correctly) that most scientists think that global warming is happening, 49% said that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening, 3% said that most scientists think that global warming is not happening, and 5% were unsure.
The poll was conducted among 800 adult Ohioans by telephones from July
3 to July 10, 2013. According to the report, “the survey was administered to respondents reached on traditional landline telephones … as well as to those reached on cellphones … The average margin of error for the total sample [was] +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.”
For the report (PDF), visit: http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Ohio_Climate_Change_Report.pdf And for NCSE’s collection of polls and surveys on climate change, visit: http://ncse.com/polls/polls-climate-change
KANSAS REPUBLICAN PARTY OPPOSES THE NGSS
The Kansas Republican Party recently adopted a resolution that calls on state leaders to “prohibit adoption of any standards that require the state to cede any measure of control over their drafting and revision, including but not limited to the Next Generation Science Standards,” the Lawrence Journal-World (September 16, 2013) reports.
The Kansas state board of education voted to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards in June 2013, despite protests over their treatment of evolution and climate change as central scientific topics.
The 2012 platform of the Kansas Republican Party includes, under the heading “Building the Knowledge of Students,” the sentence, “Kansas students should be allowed and encouraged to fully discuss and critique all science-based theories for the origin of life in science curricula,” and, under the heading, “Preserving the Heartland,” the sentence, “Carbon dioxide, one of the most common gases on earth, should not be declared a pollutant nor used as an excuse to deny the construction of new power plants in Kansas.”
For the story in the Lawrence Journal-World, visit: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/sep/16/state-gop-adopts-resolution-demanding-withdrawal-c/ For the Kansas Republican Party’s 2012 platform, visit: http://ksgop.org/state_platform/ And for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Kansas, visit: http:.//ncse.com/kansas
EDITORIAL PRAISE FOR KENTUCKY’S ADOPTION OF THE NGSS
The decision in Kentucky to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards was editorially praised by the Louisville Courier-Journal (September 15, 2013). As NCSE previously reported, on September 11, 2013, Governor Steve Beshear announced that he would implement the standards on his own authority after the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee voted 5-1 to reject the standards as deficient, despite the fact that the state department of education and state board of education favored them.
The editorial described the five legislators on the subcommittee who voted to reject the standards as voting for ignorance, and expressed a lack of respect for the stated reasons for their votes. Especially unimpressive was the claim that there was a groundswell of opposition:
“The Kentucky Department of Education said that prior to the meeting, it received more than 4,000 oral or written comments on the standards, with 3,700 of them in favor of them. This information was not discussed at last week’s meeting.”
Praising Governor Beshear for his decision to adopt the standards, the Courier-Journal’s editorial warned, “Supporters of science standards must keep up the fight. It’s over for now, but the General Assembly, when it meets in January, could overrule Gov. Beshear’s decision to enact the standards if lawmakers so choose. That would be a very bad choice. But it wouldn’t be the legislature’s first bad decision and science standards supporters need to stay organized and make sure they aren’t drowned out by a smaller, but louder, anti-science crowd.”
For the Courier-Journal’s editorial, visit:
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130915/OPINION01/309150033/Editorial-Ignorance-not-bliss-science-classes
And for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Kentucky, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/kentucky
“DEFENDING SCIENCE EDUCATION: CLIMATE AS A SECOND FRONT FOR BIOLOGISTS”
A viewpoint column entitled “Defending Science Education: Climate as a Second Front for Biologists,” by NCSE’s deputy director Glenn Branch, appeared in the September 2013 issue of BioScience, published by the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
“It is now routine for evolution and climate change to be targeted together in attacks on science education in the United States,” Branch observed, citing laws in Tennessee and Louisiana, recent bills in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, and Oklahoma, the Texas state science education standards, and the recent resistance to adopting the Next Generation Science Standards in Kentucky. “Even in the absence of organized opposition to the teaching of evolution,” he added, “the situation in K-12 classrooms is famously dire,” citing survey results about the teaching of evolution and of climate change.
Praising biologists for their resistance to creationism, Branch urged, “It is time for biologists to help resist the danger posed by climate denial, too. … As with evolution, it is important to defend the teaching of climate science simply because it is sound science that students have a need — and a right — to understand.” He added, “if further reasons seem necessary, consider that climate change denial affects the way in which biology is learned and taught, studied and applied … in biological disciplines ranging from agriculture to zoology.” And he suggested a few basic ways for biologists to take action.
Recalling the rallying cry of Don McLeroy as he sought to degrade the treatment of evolution and climate change in the Texas state science standards in 2009, Branch concluded his column by countering, “Experts, in short, have to stand up to the likes of McLeroy.”
For Branch’s column (PDF), visit:
http://ncse.com/climate/branch-2013-defending-science-education-climate-as-second-front
For information about BioScience, visit:
http://www.aibs.org/bioscience/
Thanks for reading. And don’t forget to visit NCSE’s website — http://ncse.com — where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them.
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