Pirate's Cove

The UK Guardian really, really, really wants “climate change” to be taught in schools, because no schools apparently do this at all now

It’s time to teach climate change in school. Here’s how
We need to give our kids the tools to observe and understand the effects of a changing climate – for their future and ours

Why is it so difficult to teach climate change in our classrooms?

My kids hear climate change discussed in the news as a very real threat, but it is largely absent from school science curricula. In fact, most children the world over don’t receive any formal academic reasoning to put the vast amount of information and opinions into context, and they have no credible outlet to ask their own questions.

To date, many attempts to educate the public – and our kids – about climate change have relied on scare tactics that focus on superstorms, massive floods and ominous weather patterns to generate fear. But fear actually can inhibit the desire to learn more and take action – particularly in young people.

Without fear, the “climate change” movement is lost. Hence the part about being “a very real threat”, which seems to be a “scare tactic”.

Teaching climate change shouldn’t be about preaching to our kids. A good science curriculum should empower students to ask their own questions and give them the tools to find and understand the answers themselves…

Climate change curricula should be based on real-time empirical data, encourage hands-on participation and problem-solving….

Well, hey, that sounds good. Kids should be given all the available information from all sides, right? Right??? Um, no, apparently

…and offer a pragmatic approach to what individuals can do and are doing to combat climate change.

In other words, teach one side only, do not allow divergent facts and thought into the curriculum, and brainwash kids.

The future of our communities, natural resources and ecosystems depends on how well we understand, value and protect the habitats and species that sustain our world. We need to be proactive and give young learners the tools to observe the effects of a changing climate for themselves. It’s one more way to invest in the future of our planet and let our kids shape the world that soon will be theirs. To quote Carl Sagan, “This is our world. It is our responsibility to cherish it.”

Isn’t that part of the “scare tactics” we were told shouldn’t be taught?