Last year, the state of Texas got a failing grade when it came to teaching public school students about climate change. A report by the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund found that the state’s current science education standards don’t meet key, basic criteria about climate education: Teaching students that climate change is real, that it’s caused by humans burning fossil fuels, and that the effects of climate change will be catastrophic.
But climate miseducation isn’t just a problem in Texas: From rural California to immigrant communities in Arkansas, school districts across the nation are beholden to conservative ideologues on school boards, fossil fuel money, and the political leanings of middle school science teachers. In a new book, Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America, journalist Katie Worth chronicles how students in the U.S. are being misled when it comes to climate science.
Worth reviewed dozens of commonly used textbooks that introduce doubt about the scientific consensus on climate change. She sat in on dozens of science classes, including one where an energy lobbyist made a presentation about the industry’s benefits. She even reported from one of the most prominent climate denial conferences in the country, where lobbyists sent out thousands of industry-backed pamphlets to teachers across the nation. Worth spoke with the Texas Observer about what she found in Texas, how capitalism has influenced the way climate is taught, and how miseducation on climate is also an issue of equity.
