For a year now, I’ve been covering the growing fight over the teaching of accurate climate science in American classrooms. The conflict is being driven by politics, of course, but also by the fact that school districts are, increasingly, bringing information about global warming into the educational curriculum--leading, inevitably, to pressure on teachers, backlash from parents, and even, in some cases, school board or legislative interference.
This is, of course, happening most often in ideologically conservative communities, where we have already seen climate science teaching conflicts start.
So what do you do about it?
As it happens, there is a national organization that already has decades of experience in dealing with politicized fights over the content of science education. It is the Oakland, CA-based National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which has defended the teaching of evolution across America going back nearly 30 years.
And now, NCSE has just announced it is adding climate change to its docket. (The group's arrival in this space is such a big development--at least to my mind--that I just devoted a full Point of Inquiry podcast episode to interviewing NCSE director Eugenie Scott about it.)
As this effort unfolds, I think there will be a few things to keep in mind. First, the climate education is not like the evolution education issue in several key respects, and so cannot be handled in the same way:
