The National Science Foundation gave a $5.8 million grant last week to the Maryland-Delaware Climate Change Education, Assessment, and Research (MADE CLEAR) partnership, according to a press release from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science at Cambridge. This grant and five others nationwide, are intended to advance climate-change education in schools and communities, Education Week reports.
MADE CLEAR is a joint project in Maryland and Delaware to help schools deliver effective and regionally relevant instruction in grades 8–12. The project is “an attempt to get appropriate content related to climate change into the curricula of schools on a statewide level,” said Don Boesch, the president of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, and the project director for UMCES’s grant. “People have to understand what is going on and sort through all the things they hear … and the choices we have to face.”
Even as new environmental science rules go into effect throughout Maryland’s public schools, “Teachers aren’t comfortable addressing the subject because they don’t understand it at all,” Mr Boesch said. “It is an inherently complicated set of issues that transcend a single field of science.” Plus, “It’s viewed in our society today as controversial and sensitive, so if I raise this issue, I’m going to upset someone and have a problem.”
In addition, the new science standards, to be released this fall, are expected to include climate change in a major way: A draft version of the standards, released to the public for comment last spring, had this to say about climate change: “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (‘global warming’).”
The National Research Council and other groups working on the standards probably won’t change this language very much in the final version, despite the controversy. In support of the controversy, consider an article signed by 16 scientists and published by the Wall Street Journal in February, entitled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming: There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.” Then there’s this page, with a decidedly different view, by ClimatePath, a supporter of carbon-reducing projects worldwide.
Additional grant recipients
The New England Aquarium, $5.5 million, for working with educators, youth interpreters, etc., at zoos, aquariums, and science centers to spread the word that human activity is a major contributor to the increase in global temperatures.
“There is a tremendous amount of consensus in the scientific community,” said Billy Spitzer, the vice president of programs, exhibits, and planning at the New England Aquarium. “We start with where the science is, and the science is increasingly clear. We’re not so caught up in a lot of the politics: We really are science-based, we really do reach a lot of people through visitors, but also programs that we run, programs for kids, programs for teachers.”
Columbia University, $5.7 million, for a project to help the public understand climate issues in the polar regions, with a focus on “novel educational approaches,” including gaming and game-like activities.
Franklin Institute Science Museum, $2.2 million, for programs that engage urban residents in community-based learning about climate change and the prospects for enhancing urban quality of life through “informed responses to a changing Earth.”
University of San Diego, $1.1 million, for developing a new model for educating both the general public and key decision-makers about climate change.
Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, $2.5 million, for programs to enhance climate-change education in the Pacific Island region, with involvement of school systems, universities, and others.
