The Most Important Subject Ever

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Summary

Five years in the making, A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution—as well as on people who are working to make things better. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth has the breadth and depth of Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, one of the most popular books we’ve published.

At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at risk, here is a resource that helps students see what’s wrong and imagine solutions.

Praise for A People's Curriculum for the Earth

"To really confront the climate crisis, we need to think differently, build differently, and teach differently. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is an educator’s toolkit for our times."

— Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

"This volume is a marvelous example of justice in ALL facets of our lives—civil, social, educational, economic, and yes, environmental. Bravo to the Rethinking Schools team for pulling this collection together and making us think more holistically about what we mean when we talk about justice."

— Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Bigelow and Swinehart have created a critical resource for today’s young people about humanity’s responsibility for the Earth. This book can engender the shift in perspective so needed at this point on the clock of the universe."

— Gregory Smith, Professor of Education, Lewis & Clark College, co-author with David Sobel of Place- and Community-based Education in Schools

One News Story = How Many Good Science Lessons?

For civilization to survive, we must adjust our focus from yammering on about preparing children to compete in a global economy to something that is inclusive of preparing children to cooperate in the global ecology. There will be no global economy or any other economy unless CO2 emissions are scaled back to a sustainable level.

Here is one news story that could spark a half-dozen related science lessons, that could who knows, help to make it possible for our grandchildren to build happy lives for their children, rather than hope to survive an anguished hell on earth. From HuffPo:

Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu recently made headlines by calling for the widespread use of "cool roofs" as a smart way to combat climate change.

The idea was oversimplified in the news media as simply "painting the world white," but that is not what Secretary Chu suggested. In fact, it is a caricature of what could be an important way to offset our carbon emissions. Secretary Chu is correct in suggesting we pursue cool roofs, and I hope more people will learn about this new strategy and consider adopting it for their homes and businesses.

If nothing else, a white or cool roof will save you up to 20 percent on your air conditioning bill and it's hard to argue with that. Over its lifecycle, a new white roof costs no more than a traditional roof.

The basic idea behind cool roofs is simple and recognized for centuries by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Dark colors absorb more heat than light colors. It's for this reason that people living in the tropics wear light-colored clothes and the same reason you don't lean on a black car on a hot day. Similarly, darker colored roofs retain more of the heat from sunlight within our atmosphere. But light roofs reflect more of that light straight back into space. Therefore, making roofs lighter in color increases their solar reflectivity and directly offsets CO2 emissions.

The potential savings are both huge and surprising. My colleagues and I have estimated that replacing urban roofs with solar-reflective materials in tropical and temperate regions of the world would offset 24 billion tons of CO2.

Let me explain. The average US roof is approximately 1,000 square feet and lasts for about 20 years. A white roof produces a one-time offset of 10 tons of CO2 and would eliminate emissions from one car for more than 2.5 years. Considered on a national scale, the equivalent would be eliminating two billion tons of CO2 emissions or removing 20 million cars off the road for 20 years. From a global perspective, replacing dark roofs with cool ones would be equivalent to taking half the world's cars - 300 million vehicles -- off the road for 20 years or reducing 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions for the same period.

That may sound too good to be true, but it is possible.

Because most large, modern cities have dark roofs, roads, and parking lots, they tend to run 5-10% hotter and create the "urban heat island" effect. Cool roofs mitigate the "urban heat island" effect and improve outdoor air quality and comfort. Light-colored roofs have other benefits. Most importantly, they lower temperatures inside of homes and businesses, thereby reducing the need for air-conditioning during the hot summer months. That translates to additional savings in CO2 emissions.

Since 2005, California building standards have required that any flat roof on a new building be a white roof. The California will soon also require new residential roofs to have cool colors as a way to reduce cooling costs. In an effort to cut its power costs, the city of Phoenix recently invested $28,600 of its $4.3 million in housing funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to apply reflective white paint on the roof of a public housing complex.

Simply put, a cool roof will save money for homeowners and businesses through reduced air conditioning costs. The real question is not whether we should move toward cool roof technology: it's why we haven't done it sooner.

Kudos to Dr. Chu for examining the science and embracing this sensible approach in combating climate change.

Dr. Art Rosenfeld is a member of the California Energy Commission.

Texas Taliban Poisons the Science Teaching Well

This wouldn't be such a big deal if Texas did not have such an influence on the what shows up in science textbooks nationwide. Texas citizens should know that their State Board members have made Texas, once again, the laughingstock of the nation, while advancing the kinds of ignorance and superstition that would destroy the world just to prove its prophecy correct. From the NYTimes:

. . . . The board tentatively decided in January to drop the “strengths and weaknesses” language. On Thursday, Democrats and moderate Republicans on the board blocked a proposal by social conservatives to reinstate it. Even with one moderate board member missing, the measure was blocked with a preliminary 7-to-7 vote.

The full board is set to take a final vote on Friday.

Failing to overhaul the curriculum broadly, conservatives instead attached a series of measures specific to subjects like biology, where teachers would be newly required to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.”

In the earth-science curriculum, conservatives weakened language concerning “the concept of an expanding universe” to address instead “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.”

With protesters on both sides of the issue carrying signs outside its meetings, the board has heard impassioned testimony from science teachers, parents and others.

A conservative board member, Bob Craig of Lubbock, expressed satisfaction with the overall changes.

“I personally believe that language is good language,” Mr. Craig said in an interview. “It allows for full discussion of all sides of the issue.”

Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that promotes the teaching of evolution, said the vote would not end the debate.

“If they don’t get the political strategy, they’ll go piecemeal,” Mr. Quinn said. “The State Board of Education pretty much slammed the door on ‘strengths and weaknesses,’ but then went around and opened all the windows in the house.”

Infusing 19th Century Science Skills Into Texas Schools

The theocrats strike again, and Rick Perry and Dr. Don McLeroy are at the head of creationist column. A clip from the NY Times:

. . . .Even as federal courts have banned the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in biology courses, social conservatives have gained 7 of 15 seats on the Texas board in recent years, and they enjoy the strong support of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.

The chairman of the board, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist, pushed in 2003 for a more skeptical version of evolution to be presented in the state’s textbooks, but could not get a majority to vote with him. Dr. McLeroy has said he does not believe in Darwin’s theory and thinks that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event, thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion as scientists contend. . . .

Teachers Who Deserve to Be Fired--But Won't

From Wired, ht to Raw Story:

One in eight U.S. high school teachers presents creationism as a valid alternative to evolution, says a poll published in the Public Library of Science Biology.

Of more than 900 teachers who responded to a poll conducted by Penn State University political scientist Michael Berkman and colleagues, 32 percent agreed that creationism and intelligent design should be taught as scientifically unsound. Forty percent said such explanations are religiously valid but inappropriate for science class.

However, 25 percent said they devoted classroom time to creationism or intelligent design. Of these, about one-half -- 12 percent of all teachers -- called creationism a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species," and the same number said that "many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory." (The full study makes for interesting reading: Evolution and Creationism in America’s Classrooms: A National Portrait.

Longtime Wired Science readers know that I'm less bothered than many science writers at the possibility of evolution being under-taught in science and biology courses. So long as a teacher imparts a sense of wonder and curiosity, the details will follow. However, teaching creationism or intelligent design alongside evolution, as if religious explanations had even a fraction of the scientific validity of evolution, is unacceptable -- it promotes fatally flawed, uncritical thinking.

What to do?

The study's authors note that courtroom victories -- classroom creationism has consistently been struck down in U.S. courts -- is apparently insufficient to guarantee an accurate depiction of evolution. Nor will rigorous state science standards, like those recently passed in Florida, do the trick. Instead they recommend teacher certification requiring the completion of an evolutionary biology course. . . . .