Denial of climate change implanted in American education system
Fellow Katie Worth reported on how climate change is taught in America
By Rachel Ryan
Climate denial didn’t sprout out of the atmosphere fully formed, said Katie Worth, author and former O’Brien Fellow (2018–19).
“It appeared because there was a real concerted effort and a real campaign to promote doubt by the fossil fuel industry.”
Worth spoke Monday at a virtual roundtable discussion on the state of climate change education, the topic of Worth’s newly released book, Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America. Columbia Global Reports and The GroundTruth Project arranged the event.
There are various reasons why the problems of misinformation in climate change education persist.
Worth and Alex Halliday, founding dean of Columbia Climate School and director of Earth Institute at Columbia University, agreed that one of those reasons is fragmentation in the American education system. Academic standards, which inform what children are required to learn each year, are haphazard across the U.S., said Worth. That means in some areas, there is no requirement to teach about climate change.
According to Halliday, this puts the U.S. at a major disadvantage for combating the issue. Succinct academic standards could help. However, they still aren’t foolproof.
“Tell kids it’s real, it’s us, it’s bad and that there is hope,” Worth said.
Worth mentioned that academic standards don’t define how something should be learned or what resources should be used.
This can mean teachers are relying on online lesson plans created by monied interests, or figuring it out on their own, her reporting found.
Another issue is textbooks. During the discussion, Worth pointed to the theory of evolution as an example of a similarly contested topic in education. At the time, many textbook makers removed evolution from their books and teachers were careful to tiptoe around the issue. Now, this is happening with climate change. Textbook makers know it’s a sticky issue and so they’re careful with how they talk about it, often using doubtful language, said Worth.
“We think of textbooks as these authoritative sources…and then you actually look at what is actually written in them about this really sensitive subject and it’s not the truth,” Worth said. “That to me is really shocking.”
Tensions in schools are an additional concern. Worth said that in her reporting, she talked to a 6th grade science teacher, who took care to teach kids about climate. One day the teacher’s students came in and questioned why they were learning about it. Then, they left their science class to go to history, where the teacher was sharing climate denialism videos with the students. These opposing views are what further perpetuate climate change denial, said Worth.
But there are successful ways to teach climate change. Worth mentioned four factors that emerged from her reporting and in talking with teachers.
Tell kids it’s real, it’s us, it’s bad and that there is hope, she said.
“If a kid walks out of their education knowing those four facts, then they’re doing better than most adults in this country,” Worth said.
And it can’t just be all about doom and gloom either. Kids need to know there are solutions and they have a role in them, Worth emphasized.
Halliday echoed Worth, saying that young people are the ones that have the real focus on trying to do something about climate change, which is why we need to continue educating them.
The younger generations are “going to feel the most of the climate crisis going forward” and “they’ve got more to lose than anybody,” Halliday said.
Other speakers that participated in the discussion included Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University; Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer of FRONTLINE; Jimmy So, editor of Columbia Global Reports; Charles Sennott, CEO of The GroundTruth Project; Nicholas Lemann, director of Columbia Global Reports and dean emeritus at Columbia Journalism School (moderator).
You can watch the full event here >>
