“A pretty scary topic.” Teachers struggle to sift through junk science, misleading and outdated information to teach climate change.
In this April 25, 2019, photo, science teacher Sarah Ott speaks to her class about climate literacy in Dalton, Ga. Teachers across the country describe struggles finding trustworthy materials to help them teach their students about climate change.
There are materials produced by climate change doubters, lesson plans developed by the oil industry, and countless other sites with misleading or outdated information. The, funded by federal grants, reviewed more than 30,000 free online resources and found only 700 acceptable for use in schools. “Our history is full of examples where ‘common knowledge’ was discarded in favor of more correct hypotheses,” the lesson plans say. Among them, it lists, “Are diseases caused by evil spirits? Are natural disasters caused by angry gods?”Also vying for educators’ attention are classroom-ready materials made available by the oil companies. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and other companies have invested heavily in promoting science, technology, engineering and math education in K-12 schools.
A spokeswoman for the industry group, Dara McBee, said their materials align with Oklahoma standards, which do not reference climate change, and they are intended to supplement what students learn in school. Climate change education varies across states, and often from one classroom to the next. The Next Generation Science Standards, which emphasize climate change and how humans are altering the planet, have been adopted by or served as a model for most states. But many teachers report that they shy away from the topic not only because of issues with materials but also the political sensitivities, and uncertainty over where to introduce an issue that crosses so many disciplines.
“I have a Ph.D. from Stanford in biochemistry, and it’s still hard for me to source stuff that works in my classroom right,” said Kirstin Milks, an Earth science teacher at Bloomington High School South in Indiana.
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