NCSE Evolution and Climate Change Report – 6/27/14

“WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING YOUR KIDS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?”

“What are they teaching your kids about global warming?” asked National Journal (June 26, 2014). The answer is provided by “a patchwork of climate instruction guidelines that largely leaves teachers to their own devices, facilitating massive disparities in global-warming education from school to school and state to state.” “There’s a lot of variability in how this is taught right now,” NCSE’s Minda Berbeco explained. “What’s really troubling is a lot of students are not receiving accurate scientific information.”

State science standards in Georgia and West Virginia, and statutes in Louisiana and Tennessee, encourage teachers to promote climate change denial. And opposition to the Next Generation Science Standards—so far adopted in eleven states, California, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia—often centers on their treatment of climate science. Such opposition derailed the adoption of the NGSS in Wyoming.

Even in the absence of explicit policies or overt pressure to promote climate change denial or downplay climate change, teachers are leery of experiencing a backlash. One teacher told National Journal, “I stay out of the process because when I first started teaching this I was labeled an evangelist. I have a kid of my own, and I have a job to keep.” The article clearly, and correctly, states that  “[n]inety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is underway and human activity is the primary cause” and “[s]cientists insist that teaching the controversy—and not the consensus—is a dereliction of duty and a propagation of falsehood.”

For the story in National Journal, visit: http://ncse.com/news/2014/06/what-are-they-teaching-your-kids-global-warming-0015710

And for NCSE’s resources on climate science and climate education, visit: http://ncse.com/climate

NGSS IN US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT

“Political debates surrounding climate change and creationism are now making their way into America’s schools, as more states are deciding whether to adopt or reject new common science standards”—the Next Generation Science Standards—“that put a greater emphasis on controversial topics like global warming and evolution,” according to US News and World Report (June 20, 2014).

Eleven states—California, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington—and the District of Columbia have already adopted the the Next Generation Science Standards. But, as the story observes, “Critics of the standards have said they do not present the issue of human influence in global warming objectively and do not consider ‘all sides’ when discussing evolution.”

In 2014, as NCSE previously reported, the Wyoming legislature blocked the adoption of the NGSS because of concerns about their treatment of climate science. Although Oklahoma’s new state science standards are not identical to the NGSS, there were legislative efforts to block their adoption; these were ultimately unsuccessful, however, and the governor approved the new standards on June 19, 2014.

As for evolution, the story reports, “A group that opposes the NGSS also filed a lawsuit last September in Kansas — one of the states that has already adopted the science standards — claiming the standards promote atheism and are therefore unconstitutional for violating the separation of church and state.” Documents from the ongoing case, COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al., are available on NCSE’s website.

Supporting the NGSS nationally are the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the National Science Teachers Association. There is also widespread support for the standards at the state level. In Wyoming, for example, the Wyoming Association of Churches and a group of current and former educators at the University of Wyoming have both recently issued statements in their favor.

Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” a member of NCSE’s Advisory Council, told US News and World Report that the NGSS “are great, they’re fine” as they stand. Having recently engaged in highly publicized debates over evolution and climate change, Nye described those who reject the NGSS on account of their treatments of those topics as “outside of the mainstream of scientific thought.”

For the story in US News and World Report, visit: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/06/20/how-the-climate-change-debate-is-influencing-whats-taught-in-schools

For documents from COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al., visit: http://ncse.com/legal/cope-v-kansas-state-boe

And for NCSE’s coverage of previous events in Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas, visit: http://ncse.com/news/wyoming http://ncse.com/news/oklahoma http://ncse.com/news/kansas

OKLAHOMA SCIENCE STANDARDS ADOPTED

On June 19, 2014, Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin approved the state’s adoption of a new set of science standards, according to US News & World Report (June 20, 2014), despite the objections of state legislators to their inclusion of climate science. As NCSE previously reported, the state board of education unanimously voted to adopt the new standards on March 25, 2014.

The new Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science are the product of more than a year of work by a committee of more than sixty members, the state department of education’s director of science education Tiffany Neill told the Oklahoman (March 26, 2014). The standards were widely regarded as a vast improvement on their predecessors, which received a grade of F in the Fordham Institute’s 2012 study of state science standards.

But when House Joint Resolution 1099 — a routine resolution approving or disapproving proposed permanent rules of Oklahoma state agencies— went to the House Administrative Rules and Government Insight Committee, however, the new standards were attacked. The attacks focused on the use of the Next Generation Science Standards as a resource and on the presentation of climate science in early grade levels, according to a May 13, 2014, post on the blog of the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association. The committee amended HJR 1099 to reject the state department of education’s rules implementing the new standards. On May 21, 2014, HJR 1099 as amended passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

The bill proceeded to the Senate Rules Committee, which showed no signs of wanting to consider it. Undeterred, opponents of the standards took their fight to the Senate floor, where, on May 23, 2014, Senator Anthony Sykes (R-District 24) moved to amend the similar House Joint Resolution 1097 to include disapproval of the rules implementing the new standards, saying, “global warming is the main concern.” As amended, HJR 1099 passed the Senate on a 32-9 vote. But the House failed to consider it before the legislature adjourned.

Among the organizations supporting the adoption of the new Oklahoma science standards were the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association and the grassroots Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education.

For the story in US News & World Report, visit: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/06/20/how-the-climate-change-debate-is-influencing-whats-taught-in-schools

For the story in the Oklahoman, visit: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-board-of-education-adopts-new-science-standards/article/3946962

For the Fordham Institute’s evaluation of Oklahoma’s old science standards (PDF), visit: http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2012/2012-State-of-State-Science-Standards/2012-State-Science-Standards-Oklahoma.pdf

For the post at the blog of the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association, visit: https://www.oklahomascienceteachersassociation.org/?p=5710

For information about Oklahoma’s House Joint Resolutions 1099 and 1097, visit: http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HJR1099 http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HJR1097

For the websites of OSTA and OESE, visit: https://www.oklahomascienceteachersassociation.org/ http://www.oklascience.org/ And for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Oklahoma, visit: http://ncse.com/news/oklahoma

WHAT’S NEW FROM THE SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA

Have you been visiting NCSE’s blog, The Science League of America, recently? If not, then you’ve missed:

* Steve Newton discussing the difficulty of defining the Anthropocene: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/anthropocene-problem-0015700

* Glenn Branch evaluating William Jennings Bryan’s citation of four scientists: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/bryan-s-quartet-part-1-0015683 http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/bryan-s-quartet-part-2-0015684 http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/bryan-s-quartet-part-3-0015685

* Mark McCaffrey reviewing the new report on the economic consequences of climate change: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/risky-business-changing-conversation-0015708

And much more besides! For The Science League of America, visit: http://ncse.com/blog 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. —

Sincerely,