The results of the first nationally representative survey on climate education in U.S. schools are in, and reveal, according to one noted scientist, that “we are failing students.”
The survey of 1,500 middle and high school science teachers in 50 states was conducted by the Penn State Survey Research Center (SRC) and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and the paper on the findings was published in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science.
It shows that little time was devoted to teaching climate science; while nearly three-quarters of the teachers devoted one or more lessons to recent global warming, the median amount of time they devoted to that was just an hour and a half, an amount, the authors write, that is “inconsistent with guidance from leading science and education bodies.”
The messages being taught are problematic as well.