National Center for Science Education

NCSE's executive director Ann Reid discussed climate change education on WAMU 88.5's nationally distributed 1A radio show on April 23, 2019, along with Leah Qusba, deputy director of the Alliance for Climate Education, and Daniel Morales-Doyle, a science education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

There is widespread support for climate change education among both parents and teachers, according to a poll commissioned by National Public Radio (April 22, 2019). Yet, as NPR also reported, teachers do not necessarily have everything they need to teach climate change effectively, including state science standards that present the topic accurately.

NCSE Teacher Ambassador Sarah Ott engages her community in an Earth Day-inspired mural project that aims to ensure climate change is part of normal, everyday conversation in her Georgia city.

South Carolina's House Bill 3826, which would, if enacted, have allowed public school districts to offer elective courses on religion — and to "require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science[,] as part of the course content" — died in the House Committee on Education and Public Works on April 10, 2019, when a deadline for bills to pass their house of origin expired.

NCSE Teacher Ambassador Blake Touchet takes his biology students on an annual field trip to the local zoo to help them better understand biodiversity. The trip always coincides with the week of Earth Day.

An unexpected role that many NCSE Teacher Ambassadors take on is that of expert witness. They are experts on teaching climate change and evolution and on dealing with doubts—and sometimes challenges—in their communities. This makes them perfect targets for reporters who contact NCSE looking for teachers in the trenches they can talk to about climate change and evolution education. 

The attempt seeking to require the teaching of climate change in Connecticut's public schools by law continues, despite the death of the original bill proposing the requirement. And in the meantime, the two bills attacking the treatment of climate change in Connecticut's state science standards are dead.

The Alaska state board of education unanimously approved a draft of new state science standards on March 29, 2019, according to KTOO Public Media in Juneau (March 29, 2019) — and climate change is included.

NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education — volume 39, number 2 — is now available online. 

NCSE is seeking to hire a second part-time summer intern to assist our teacher support and community outreach programs.

"Anti-indoctrination" measures designed to threaten accurate science education not only fail to pass in four state legislatures, they also fail because they don't address any kind of real problem.

Climate change and evolution were the primary targets of complaint from "nearly every person who grabbed the microphone" at a March 26, 2019, hearing in Salt Lake City, Utah, about a proposed set of high-school-level state science standards (PDF), according to the Salt Lake Tribune (March 27, 2019), even though the standards' treatment of those topics is scientifically accurate and pedagogically appropriate. 

At a time when climate change education is under legislative assault in Florida, a new poll from the Saint Leo University Polling Institute shows strong support in the Sunshine State for teaching climate change in the state's public schools. 

NCSE is seeking to hire a part-time summer intern to assist with the national expansion of NCSE's science outreach program.

"State lawmakers from Connecticut to Florida are proposing measures that some groups say could threaten how science and climate change are taught in the classroom. More than a dozen such bills have popped up this year, including from state lawmakers pushing back against broad scientific consensus that people are warming the planet, according to the National Center for Science Education," reported the Washington Post (March 11, 2019).

Two bills targeting the Iowa state science standards partly because of their treatment of climate change died on March 8, 2019, when the deadline for bills to be reported out of committee expired. Iowa adopted the Next Generation Science Standards in 2015.

Florida's Senate Bill 1454, filed on February 27, 2019, would, if enacted, revise the state's laws concerning public school instructional materials — and possibly affect science education.

Rhode Island's House Resolution 5563 (PDF) would, if approved, express the support of the House of Representatives for increased environmental and climate education in the state's public schools — and the NCSE/Penn State study of climate change education is cited as evidence of the need for the increase.

The Climate Change Education Act is again in the Senate. S. 477, introduced on February 13, 2019, would authorize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to institute a competitive grant program aimed in part at developing and improving educational material and teacher training on the topic of climate change.

Maine's Legislative Document 589 (House Paper 433), which would have required the adoption of a code of ethics for public school teachers with a provision that could have adversely affected science education, was unanimously rejected by the House Education and Cultural Affairs Committee on February 28, 2019, according to the Bangor Daily News (February 28, 2019).