Teaching Climatism in Schools—Next Generation Science Standards

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Guest post by Steve Goreham

Originally published in The Washington Times

Man-made global warming must be taught in our schools, according to the latest release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The January draft release of the NGSS by the National Research Council is a recommendation for concepts to be used by states in kindergarten through high school. But the recommendations are filled with ideology and unproven assumptions about climate change.

The Next Generation Science Standards are based on the Framework for K-12 Science Education (Framework), established in 2011 by the National Research Council, which is a staff arm of the National Academy of Sciences. A look at the 401-page Framework reveals efforts to instruct students on man-made climate change ideology. The Framework mentions on page 43 that humans need to “address climate change” and on page 166 that humans can “stabilize” the climate. But there is little empirical evidence that humans can control weather or climate in any detectable way. For example, in 2009, the mayor of Moscow claimed that the Russian air force was able to “keep it from snowing.” Five months later, Moscow received 21 inches in a single storm, exceeding the February average by 50 percent.

The NGSS and Framework use the term “theory” many times. These documents refer to the Big Bang theory, Newton’s theory of gravity, the theory of plate tectonics, the atomic theory of matter, the germ theory of disease, Darwin’s theory of the evolution of the species, and the quantum theory of matter. But the recommendations never refer to man-made climate change as a theory. Man-made warming is to be taught as science fact.

The NGSS recommends that 5th graders be taught to “construct explanations for how humans and other organisms will be affected if Earth’s temperature continues to rise.” Much more serious would be a period of global cooling, as was wrongly predicted by the scientific journal Nature and other publications in the 1970s.

By Middle School, the NGSS recommends that students be taught that “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (‘global warming’).” But the fact that global surface temperatures have been naturally rising for the last 350 years as Earth recovered from the Little Ice Age, long before any significant human greenhouse gas emissions, is not mentioned.

Indoctrination on energy is to be taught to even younger students. Fourth graders are to be taught “the differences between renewable and non-renewable energy.” By Middle School, they are to be taught that “renewable energy resources (e.g., hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass fuels)” and “inexhaustible energy sources (e.g., sunlight, wind, tides, ocean waves)” are good and that “non-renewable energy sources (e.g., coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear fission)” are frowned upon. This despite the fact that the world has centuries of proven reserves of hydrocarbon and nuclear fuels and that these fuels power more than 90 percent of our modern society.

Both the NGSS and the Framework recommend further injection of value judgments into the science curriculum. By the end of 12th grade, the students are meant to learn that “overpopulation” and “overexploitation” are being practiced by humanity. Further, students should be taught that Earth’s “natural capital” must be preserved.

Both documents praise the global climate models that have been used to create alarming forecasts of global surface temperature rise by the year 2100. The Framework states “Global climate models incorporate scientists’ best knowledge of physical and chemical processes and of the interactions of relevant systems.” These are the same climate models that have failed to predict the hiatus in global temperature rise over the last ten years and the 30-year expansion in Antarctic sea ice.

In a 2012 assessment of education systems by the Economist, the United States ranked 17th of 50 assessed nations. Suppose we return to instruction in empirically-based science, rather than climate change ideology?

Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.

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February 6, 2013 8:20 pm

Hi Greg.
Regarding the Little Ice Age and historical trends, please visit http://www.co2science.org. It lists hundreds of peer-reviewed studies from all over the world that show that the Medieval Warm Period (900-1300) was as warm or warmer than today and that the Little Ice Age (1300-1850) was cooler than both the MWP and today’s global temperatures.
Regarding global warming, if you break down Earth’s greenhouse effect, you find that 75%-90% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds (Schmidt et al, 2010). Of the last 25%, 96% of that is due to natural emissions of CO2 from oceans, biosphere, etc. (IPCC carbon cycle model). This means that the man-made portion of Earth’s greenhouse effect is less than 1% of the total.
Climatism assumes that increasing CO2 triggers increasing atmospheric water vapor to get to catastrophe, but there is no empirical data to show that atmospheric H2O has increased. This is a “flea wagging the dog” theory. The water cycle has several orders of magnitude more energy than the carbon cycle. So yes, mankind adds to global warming, but so does your cat. If we eliminated all emissions we probably could not measure the difference in global temperatures.

Mark Fraser
February 6, 2013 9:10 pm

Gail – be a little more responsible about ADHD and treatments for same. Yeah, Ritalin is overprescribed and a few might even abuse it, but it changes lives for the better. Off topic, but as a 70+ year old who has watched his own and his grandkids’ lives undergo dramatic transformations for the better, I just had to speak up. On everything else, I’m with you entirely.

Greg House
February 6, 2013 9:13 pm

Steve Goreham says:
February 6, 2013 at 8:20 pm: “Hi Greg.
Regarding the Little Ice Age and historical trends, please visit http://www.co2science.org. It lists hundreds of peer-reviewed studies from all over the world that show that the Medieval Warm Period (900-1300) was as warm or warmer than today and that the Little Ice Age (1300-1850) was cooler than both the MWP and today’s global temperatures.
Regarding global warming, if you break down Earth’s greenhouse effect, …”

==========================================================
OK, Steve, it is clear that you will not tell me the global surface temperature for the year 1666 and how you know that, and that you are not going to question the AGW concept (yet?). But I have given you a starting point on your possible way to understanding what sort of crap that concept is, let us hope for the best.
Wait, you also need to get acquainted with the Wood experiment dealing with the underlying mechanism of the alleged “greenhouse effect”: http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html

February 6, 2013 10:04 pm

We need a grassroots revolt against the #$%&*!!’ filthbags purveying this evil in the schools. Education is supposed to teach you how to think and question, not blindly accept what obviously is self-serving pap from ideologues with a murderous agenda.
A hell of a lot more people will die needlessly if the AGW scaremongers have their way than would ever die even if the globe did warm by 1 degree C (which it won’t over the long term, as a matter of scientific fact, not theory). Starvation in poor countries? Freezing to death because of out-of-sight heating fuel costs (most of which is taxes, to begin with)? How does another Holocaust grab you? And just as racist as the Nazis’, because the people who will suffer the most are poor people of color in the Third World.
These people need to be stopped by any means necessary. If Germany can ban the Nazi Party, we can ban our present-day brand of Nazis – global warming alarmists – at least from our schools and colleges. It’s not a violation of free speech to silence those who undertake to end free speech as we know it. And that’s what the present-day Nazis, aka global warming alarmists, intend to do. Without free speech, no one could question their dogma

David Cage
February 6, 2013 11:28 pm

I would agree that climate studies should be taught provided that feedback theory and Fourier analysis are taught first to show the pupils the areas where the conventional wisdom of the climate fraternity is clearly at odds with other branches of science and engineering. Areas where faulty analysis is obvious in the short term and no excuses for failure of the computer models are acceptable unlike the dismal record of climate science for predictions such as the hundred months to the non existent runaway temperature rises we are now over half way to in theory.

oldfossil
February 7, 2013 1:16 am

Steve Goreham wrote:

But the recommendations never refer to man-made climate change as a theory. Man-made warming is to be taught as science fact.

Oh dear, the word “theory” misunderstood again.
What makes it possible for me, you and Steve Goreham to go online is a “theory” known as the Standard Model, which is the basis of all electronics.
Whoops–I shouldn’t have used the Standard Model as an example because many WUWT eyes roll whenever the word “model” comes up!
“Science fact” is a catch-phrase popular with unscientific journalists. Adding the word “science” doesn’t make a fact any more factual.
If this sounds like nit-picking, Steve, the value of your message depends on its credibility, and you’re not going to get a lot of that when you misuse common words.

Brian H
February 7, 2013 1:56 am

cui bono;
Here’s a pretty good link for David Wojick: http://www.john-daly.com/guests/un_ipcc.htm

cui bono
February 7, 2013 2:29 am

Brian H says (February 7, 2013 at 1:56 am)
——
Thanks Brian. Obviously the climate powers-that-be didn’t like this one little bit!

Gail Combs
February 7, 2013 3:05 am

TomRude says:
February 6, 2013 at 1:41 pm
…Watt watchers… that should appeal to our host but it really exposes the desire for ecototalitarians to get in one’s home and dictate your lifestyle…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is already here in the USA and it is called the SMART GRID. Demand Response are the code words for the Smart Grid.
Anyone who has been at WUWT for a while should know Wind Power and Solar are intermittent power sources and unbalance the power grid. Since Congress came up with the 25X25 resolution: 10/25/07: H. Con. Res. 25, expresses the sense of Congress that it is the goal of the United States that, not later than January 1, 2025, the agricultural, forestry, and working land of the United States should provide from renewable resources not less that 25 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States and continue to produce safe, abundant, and affordable food, feed and fiber. (Any surprise that Soros and Rothschild are grabbing American farmland as fast s they can?)
Electric companies have to come up with a method for dealing with the unbalanced grid problem. The answer is SMART METERS. This allows residential electricity to be turned off so the system can be balanced.
This is the lie told to customers to get them to install smart meters

Can BGE use the smart meter to shut off my electricity?
In 2013, the smart meters will enable BGE to remotely turn service on and off at customer premises. This feature will be used when customers move out of their current homes and start service elsewhere. This capability was mandated by Maryland’s Public Service Commission in their requirements for smart meters. This cost effective feature eliminates the need for a BGE field visit when customers move or start service. BGE’s policies for situations involving a disconnection will be the same as they were prior to the installation of smart meters. The remote connect feature will also enable BGE to place customers back into service more expeditiously.

Smart Meter Deployment Remote meter turn on and off – Smart meters enable Dominion to turn your electric service on and off without having to send an employee to your home or business.

“Smart” meter planning in the United States is related to the Energy Act of 2007 and administered by the US Dept of Energy, the FCC, and each state’s public utilities commission (PUC). However, in that Act, there was NO mandate to force all residential customers to accept installation of “smart” meters–only that they would be offered….
Q: Who, then, does the “smart” meter benefit?
Only the utility companies benefit. The utility can save itself money by getting rid of meter readers. Because the “smart” meter measures hour by hour, the utility can charge you more for electricity used during certain periods of the day of their choosing.
Their story is that this device will save you money. But there are no studies, no evidence, to back this up. In fact, in the one study done so far (from Canada), customers’ bills went up, not down.
http://stopsmartmeters.org/frequently-asked-questions/faq-smart-meter-basics/

Note that the 25X25 Resolution and the Energy Act of 2007 happened under the Bush Administration and not Obummer’s.
There may not be a ‘mandate to force customers’ but that is not stopping the electric companies.

Don’t want smart meter? Power shut off
The rollout of smart electric meters across the country has run into a few snags: one woman doesn’t want one, and ended up in the dark as a result.
You might not think that would be an issue. But it is, because Duke Energy is now beginning to disconnect any homeowner who refuses a new electric meter.
Other electric companies are not pulling the plug…yet…..
Several states, including California, Michigan, Maryland, Nevada, Vermont and Maine have passed laws allowing customers to opt out of smart meters, usually by paying a small monthly fee….

This is the actual reason smart meters are being shoved down the throat of consumers

Energy InSight FAQs
….Rolling outages are systematic, temporary interruptions of electrical service.….
. With smart meters, CenterPoint Energy is proposing to add a process prior to shutting down whole circuits to conduct a mass turn off of individual meters with 200 amps or less (i.e. residential and small commercial consumers) for 15 or 30 minutes, rotating consumers impacted during that outage as well as possible future outages.
There are several benefits to consumers of this proposed process. By isolating non-critical service accounts (“critical” accounts include hospitals, police stations, water treatment facilities etc.) and spreading “load shed” to a wider distribution, critical accounts that happen to share the same circuit with non-critical accounts will be less affected in the event of an emergency. Curtailment of other important public safety devices and services such as traffic signals, police and fire stations, and water pumps and sewer lifts may also be avoided.…..

This is the Federal Government’s position and why indoctrination is starting now

The Department of Energy Report 2009
A smart grid is needed at the distribution level to manage voltage levels, reactive power, potential reverse power flows, and power conditioning, all critical to running grid-connected DG systems, particularly with high penetrations of solar and wind power and PHEVs…. Designing and retrofitting household appliances, such as washers, dryers, and water heaters with technology to communicate and respond to market signals and user preferences via home automation technology will be a significant challenge. Substantial investment will be required….

Smart Grid System Report Annex A and B
Smart-grid technologies will address transmission congestion issues through demand response and controllable load. Smart-grid-enabled distributed controls and diagnostic tools within the transmission system will help dynamically balance electricity supply and demand, thereby helping the system respond to imbalances and limit their propagation when they occur. These controls and tools could reduce the occurrence of outages and power disturbances attributed to grid overload. They could also reduce planned rolling brownouts and blackouts like those implemented during the energy crisis in California in 2000. http://www.smartgrid.gov/sites/default/files/pdfs/sgsr_annex_a-b.pdf

Indoctrination is absolutely necessary to carry out the government’s plans to get the Smart Grid installed and accepted and to get people to volunteer to buy and retrofit their appliances so the government can shut them down at will.
The Financiers of course are jumping for joy because a whole new industry has been manufactured out of thin air. ( Broken Window Fallacy anyone?)

We see an attractive long-term secular trend for investors to capitalize on over the coming 20–30 years as today’s underinvested and technologically challenged power grid is modernized to a technology-enabled smart grid. In particular, we see an attractive opportunity over the next three to five years to invest in companies that are enabling this transformation of the power grid.
http://downloads.lightreading.com/internetevolution/Thomas_Weisel_Demand_Response.pdf

Gail Combs
February 7, 2013 3:25 am

Mark Bofill says:
February 6, 2013 at 2:28 pm
“Give me a child for the first seven years and you may do what you like with him afterwards.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The actual quote is from the Jesuits on religious indoctrination: ‘Give me the child for his first seven years, and I’ll give you the man,’ It is no less accurate for being hackneyed. It is why I mentioned the use of the Day Care Child Abuse Cases as a means for the government to get their hands on children from day one. It is also one of the reasons the Rockefeller’s supported ‘feminism’ Get the women to hand the kids over to the state and put them to work creating wealth for the government and bankers to steal. It was a real win-win situation.
Why do I think it is accurate? Because of experience. If you want a good riding horse you halter break him and handle him all over within the first 24 hours. Same with a sheep or cow or goat or puppy or kitten you want to show. The earlier the training the better it sticks. If you halter break early you can turn the animal out to pasture after weaning and not handle the colt until you train him several years later. That halter is now around his mind and he will not fight you despite the fact he now weighs ten times what you do.

Gail Combs
February 7, 2013 4:26 am

Mark Fraser says:
February 6, 2013 at 9:10 pm
Gail – be a little more responsible about ADHD and treatments for same. …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark, I have a nephew with Autism and a grand niece with Aspers. I work with the local Autism societies. So Yes I agree drugs certainly have their place but tranking kids just to get them to behave in school is not one of them.
Ritalin is a Class II substance in the same category that includes cocaine. Schedule-II controlled substances are under continual surveillance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and are overseen by the UN International Narcotics Control Board. This is the drug that teachers are handing out like candy.
Read the articles I quoted. The peer reviewed paper ADHD among American Schoolchildren States point blank: “Evidence of Overdiagnosis and Overuse of Medication” This is what I am complaining about, not the use of drugs but the OVERUSE.
Read the article Gifted or ADD?
states:

Parents, if your child seems bright then please, please, PLEASE have a qualified psychologist evaluate him or her for giftedness BEFORE you accept a diagnosis of ADD and medication.
Gifted children and adults are at high risk for being identified as ADD.

In other words get a second opinion and make sure it is not an incompetent teacher who is drugging your kid to make up for her lack of teaching ability. Unfortunately you may have a real fight on your hands to keep the school from drugging your kid anyway or even removing the child from your care.
The article The Drugging of Our Children states

…Schools are now using heavy-handed tactics with parents who refuse to give the drug. Parents are accused of child abuse, violence, or neglect. Child protective services are called in to force the parents to medicate their children, sometimes under the threat of removing the child from the parent’s home. One example of the abuse of power by schools and family courts is the experience of Tammy Maria Kabiak, a mom who conscientiously gave Ritalin to her son for eight years after being told the boy had ADHD, but who decided to stop after researching the facts.
Tammy Kabiak’s decision to stop came about gradually, after several years of doubt. After Ritalin was begun, Kabiak noticed the development of side effects in her son—memory loss, shaking, bad headaches, sleep disturbances, and loss of appetite…. Ritalin could be fatal when given to children with heart problems, and her son had a heart condition….
She showed them medical records documenting the severe consequences that the child had suffered with the drug. And she showed them how, when he was taken off the drug, those conditions improved. They did take her son away, putting him into a boy’s home where psychiatric drugs were forcibly given to him. “The school took my son to a hospital without [first notifying] me,” Kabiak remembers. “When I got there, they refused to let me take him home and said if I didn’t sign papers they would call child protection and have my rights as a mother severed.”

There are several more cases documented.
My problem with the government schools is the TEACHERS are making the diagnosis. If the kid is bored silly and won’t sit still the teachers say DRUG HIM and the school’s tame doctor says OK. That is not good medical care especially with a drug that has major side effects. Teachers are drugging little boys as young as 7 years of age because they squirm and won’t sit still and in general act like typical little boys.
In many cases, I discovered, diagnoses hinge on the teachers’ responses. This is not the parents taking the kid in for evaluation it is the SCHOOL. “It was not to be taken at home, or on weekends, or vacations. He didn’t need to be medicated for regular life. It struck us as strange, wrong, to dose our son for school.”
In other words the teacher couldn’t do her job so she wanted the kid tranked so she could handle him.
As one person put it “My nephews teacher diagnosed him with ADHD and suggested in a note to the doctor that he needed ritalin, so the doctor, without any further diagnosis, wrote the perscription! In other words, the teachers are making the diagnosis and perscriptions now.”
Would you have the teacher prescribe penicillin for your kid because he sneezed? Well that is what is happening in government schools. Our brightest kids are being singled out for drugging into a stupor because they are bored silly and also on sugar highs from the candy and soda machines now installed in our schools.

oldfossil
February 7, 2013 5:09 am
Mark Bofill
February 7, 2013 6:22 am

Gail Combs says:
February 7, 2013 at 3:25 am

The actual quote is from the Jesuits on religious indoctrination: ‘Give me the child for his first seven years, and I’ll give you the man,’ …
—————–
Thanks Gail. I thought I was misremembering slightly but I couldn’t dredge the exact phrase out of my liquor sodden memory.

Pamela Gray
February 7, 2013 6:33 am

Perfect. This is good. They have built the prototype for their own monument to folly. I’ve been to textbook repositories. Teacher colleges often keep libraries stocked with sets of curriculum published through the ages. The age of “whole language” instruction and the “Neurologic Impress Method” of reading instruction are such riots to read! And completely fly in the face of modern brain imaging, otherwise known as “observation” from field research. Climatism science textbook chapters will walk the same path into the curriculum room and be laughed at by the next generation spending an afternoon walking through education history. Let them print it I say.

Pamela Gray
February 7, 2013 6:44 am

If a child is referred for a special education evaluation related to a health impairment (in this case ADD/ADHD), it is NOT the teacher who makes a diagnosis. And if they do, it would be a violation of federal and state law. Please get your facts straight on current law.

Frank K.
February 7, 2013 7:06 am

RHS says:
February 6, 2013 at 11:37 am
“The only upside I can see is rebellion. Once the current generation feels its been lied to, they will learn to investigate on their own. That is a side show I cant wait see.”
Don’t worry – as I can attest (being a parent), rebellion is built right into our teenagers! And they realize that their futures are being ripped off by self-centered and greedy climate advocates like Al Gore and Jim Hansen. All we need to do is to point out the idiocy and fallacious reasoning of the CAGW arguments, and explain to them how the eco-left and their political allies are hijacking their futures by running up the debt and are forcing them to believe in CAGW “climate change” as an excuse for their actions…

Gail Combs
February 7, 2013 8:01 am

Pamela Gray says:
February 7, 2013 at 6:44 am
If a child is referred for a special education evaluation related to a health impairment (in this case ADD/ADHD), it is NOT the teacher who makes a diagnosis. And if they do, it would be a violation of federal and state law. Please get your facts straight on current law.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pam, since when does a law have anything to do with what actually happens? If you have a school system with a doctor that just goes along with the teacher’s evaluation and recommendation you get the situations I am talking of. There is enough ‘misdiagnosis’ going on that it is the subject of peer-reviewed papers, news articles and parent protest groups. Just search “over prescribing adhd medication” if you do not believe the situation is real.
Heck I had the idiot school doctor back in the 1960’s wanting to put me on tranks when the actual problem was a very itchy rash from an allergy!
And it is not just kids.

American Psychological Association: Inappropriate prescribing:
Research shows that all too often, Americans are taking medications that may not work or may be inappropriate for their mental health problems.
Writing a prescription to treat a mental health disorder is easy, but it may not always be the safest or most effective route for patients, according to some recent studies and a growing chorus of voices concerned about the rapid rise in the prescription of psychotropic drugs.
Today, patients often receive psychotropic medications without being evaluated by a mental health professional, according to a study last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)…..

Also you say “referred for a special education evaluation “ so where the heck are the parents in all this? Does the child now belong to the school and the parents are nonentities? That is what I get from the situation as it now stands. Warning people that such a situation exists in the government schools so they can do what is best for their child is not out of line. Warning parents so they can jump in immediately when a problem starts to show and seek out the most competent doctor instead of taking pot-luck with a government appointed hack is my method of making sure kids get the best care possible.
You point of view seems to be protecting the status of teachers.

Milwaukee Bob
February 7, 2013 8:03 am

…and here is 1 of the primary ways “they” are going to pay to make it happen:
Environmental Literacy Grants for Building Capacity of Informal and Formal Educators
Document Type: Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number: NOAA-SEC-OED-2013-2003614
Opportunity Category: Discretionary
Posted Date: Jan 18, 2013
Creation Date: Jan 18, 2013
Original Closing Date for Applications: Mar 12, 2013
Current Closing Date for Applications: Mar 12, 2013
Archive Date: Apr 11, 2013
Funding Instrument Type: Grant
Category of Funding Activity: Education
Expected Number of Awards:
Estimated Total Program Funding: $3,000,000
Award Ceiling: $1,000,000
Award Floor: $0
CFDA Number(s): 11.008 — NOAA Mission-Related Education Awards
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: No
Agency Name: Department of Commerce (??)
Description
The goal of this NOAA Environmental Literacy Grants (ELG) Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) is to build the capacity of informal educators (including interpreters and docents) and/or formal educators (pre- or in-service) to use NOAA data and data access tools to help K-12 students and/or the public understand and respond to global change. Successful projects will enhance educators’ ability to use the wealth of scientific data, data visualizations, data access technologies, information products, and other assets available through NOAA (plus additional sources, if desired) to engage K-12 students and/or other members of the public in a minimum of two U.S. states or territories. Partnerships with NOAA entities and/or involvement of NOAA scientists to facilitate the use of such assets by educators are strongly encouraged.
As an ultimate outcome, successful projects should aim to increase educators’ effectiveness in promoting stewardship and increasing informed decision making by a diverse pool of K-12 students and/or other members of the public. The impact of the proposed project on the target educators must be measurable during the award period. Projects are also encouraged to track outcomes among the public and/or K-12 audiences served by these educators. Yes, they are going to “track” our and our children’s level of indoctrination! Project topics must relate to NOAA’s mission in the areas of ocean, coastal, Great Lakes, weather, and climate sciences and stewardship and should focus on one or more of the goals of NOAA’s Next Generation Strategic Plan (http://www.ppi.noaa.gov/goals/) healthy oceans; weather-ready nation; climate adaptation and mitigation; and resilient coastal communities and economies.
Projects must specifically emphasize the theme of global environmental change, including (but not limited to) such topics as drought, severe weather, ocean acidification, sea level rise, and climate change.
Where applicable, project design should be informed by projects previously funded by NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Grants Program (See “Awards” tab under http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/grants/elg.html). Projects that specifically build capacity of educators to engage teens are of interest. Similarly, NOAA has an interest in projects that reach groups traditionally underserved and/or underrepresented in Earth System science.
This funding opportunity identifies two priority categories of eligible applicants, both of equal importance. Both priorities have the same goal: to build the capacity of informal and/or formal educators to use NOAA data and data access tools to help K-12 students and/or the public understand and respond to global change. Eligible applicants for Priority 1 are collaborative teams of two or more U.S. institutions. Eligible applicants for Priority 2 are collaborative teams of two or more non-profit U.S. aquariums, of which at least one must be accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Collaborative applicant teams in both Priority 1 and Priority 2 are strongly encouraged to include at least one applicant that has not previously received a grant from NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Grants program. Proposed projects in each priority must be between two and five years in duration and have combined federal requests of $500,000 – $1,000,000 for all years of the project. It is anticipated that awards under this announcement will be made by September 30, 2013 and that the projects funded under this announcement will have a start date no earlier than October 1, 2013.
Additional Information on Eligibility:
Eligible applicants for Priority 1 are collaborative teams of two or more institutions in the United States. The following types of institutions may serve as applicants on a collaborative team for Priority 1: institutions of higher education; other nonprofits, including informal science-education institutions such as museums, zoos, and aquariums; K-12 public and independent schools and school systems; and state, local and Indian tribal governments in the United States. For-profit organizations, foreign institutions, and individuals are not eligible to apply. Each individual applicant must submit an application to NOAA as part of the collaborative team. Applications to Priority 1 that do not meet these eligibility criteria will not be merit reviewed. Eligible applicants for Priority 2 are collaborative teams that are exclusively composed of two or more 501(c)(3) non-profit aquariums in the United States. At least one applicant in each collaborative team must be accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Each individual applicant must submit an application to NOAA as part of the collaborative team. Applications to Priority 2 that do not meet these eligibility criteria will not be merit reviewed. For both Priority 1 and Priority 2, there are no eligibility restrictions on institutions that are serving as project partners but are not submitting an application. These partners can receive a portion of the funding through sub-awards or, for NOAA partners, through direct support from the Office of Education (see Section II.A. and Section IV.B.1(f)). Note: Although NOAA programs and offices can receive a small amount of support from the Office of Education to facilitate their involvement with the project, the principal benefit of the project cannot be to support NOAA. An individual may apply only once as a Principal Investigator (PI) through this funding opportunity, and the same application may not be submitted to more than one priority. However, institutions may submit more than one distinct application and individuals may serve as co-PIs or key personnel on more than one application. Federal employees may not serve as PIs or co-PIs on any application, although they may be included as key personnel.
Note: Links to this announcement and other helpful information for applying are available at http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/grants/elg.html under the “Funding” tab.
PROSELYTIZING anyone? And here we thought there was a separation between religion and the state….

gnomish
February 7, 2013 11:48 am

Gail Combs said:
” Does the child now belong to the school and the parents are nonentities?”
by jove, i think you’ve got it. how else can one explain what is?
it’s the well established premise of this thread that (excepting home schoolers) parents abdicate responsibility for raising their children and blame the abuse of unformed minds on those they pay to serve in loco parentis.
it’s been confessed on this thread that even complaint is too frightfully upsetting – forget about any meaningful action!
somehow, it’s believed that these children will recognize they’ve been crippled by indoctrination, once the damage is done, and then, somehow, they will not hold their parents liable in any way.
how much more of a non-entity could a parent aspire to be?

Pamela Gray
February 7, 2013 6:37 pm

I have never experienced what you describe Gail. And if I did, I would put my license on the line to stop it. Anecdotal evidence is not the basis of scientific inquiry (something you of all people should know with regard to climate warming) yet you seemingly are basing your comments on anecdotal evidence. As a result, you are far off the mark (as are AGW believers) and your comments boarder on insults. I will say no more other than to repeat, the picture you paint is not one of true colors but is one of your own rose colored glasses and stereotypes. It is not becoming. Not at all.
By the way, the law requires that parent input be recorded throughout the process of special education assessments and decisions. Indeed, it is only by parent written permission that special education services be provided. If parents are excluded from participation, which is easily proven by lack of records of such participation, they have every right to free recourse. Take the glasses off and base your comments on facts, not your own emotional beliefs.

Goode 'nuff
February 8, 2013 12:09 pm

Gosh, maybe half of North Central Arkansas and South Central Missouri is asking me to ask Pamela to come be a beautiful, smart, classy, fine and friendly teacher down here. You have a Pamela Gray fan club. 😉 Lots of people know me, err know my hot guitar anyway.
Don’t know wuwt, but every time I flirt my company buries me with work and my stocks do pretty well. You’re making me rich… sooooo hey, hey honey let me take you home, sweet muscadine wines all alone! There’s a perfect, cozy little restaurant at Branson, overlooking beautiful Table Rock Lake. Another overlooking Taneycomo but the water is cold for swimming, it’s a trout lake below the dam. You would certainly add to the beauty, bet you even make gold look good. 😉
3 Hatteras Red, Scuppernong Blush, Scuppernong, Cool Muscadine and some Christmas Wine from Duplin. I was at Greensboro, NC recently and picked some. Also have some from http://www.wiederkehrwines.com/fest.html haven’t tried yet. Anything from Duplin http://www.duplinwinery.com/ so good.

Pamela Gray
February 9, 2013 7:52 am

Goode’nuff, my grandfather came from Missouri. After a stage and vaudeville tour as a singer, he came out west with his bride to help her run the family ranch. He caught the eye of that 5 ft 2″ redheaded dancer who was really just a simple country girl from a little ranch in the far NE corner of Oregon. I have learned that southern gentlemen are easily swayed by such women. I was once offered a diamond ring and marriage by a quite elderly man from MIssissippi who was visiting the ranch a few years back. He owned several jewelry stores in the south. What did I do that caught his eye? It wasn’t his eye I caught. It was his stomach. I fixed a meal of venison stew and fried beer soda bread.
As for the fan club. You must jest. I can’t be that well known. Heck. Didn’t step foot out of Oregon till I was in college and have flown on a jet (actually, wouldn’t really call one of them a jet) exactly three times in my 5 plus decades life.
But back to your need. I would imagine there are several areas in this country trying to figure out how to get all students, including those with learning problems and other special needs, to benchmark. With the rigor of the new education standards (which I agree with) and the assessment system that goes along with it (which I agree with), we are all in for a rough ride. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, usually in the face of great opposition, something I am familiar with. I happen to believe great things can be done by the public school system. Many, many people would disagree with me. To which I say, “nuts”.
But back to the science content of which this thread explores. Each state and district gets to adopt the curriculum it desires. As it should be. What worries me would be whether or not the common core smarter balanced assessment system (which most states are adopting) would eventually include loaded questions related to AGW. If it does, then you will see me on the opposite side of the common core and the companion assessment system.
Finally, I must come full circle. Gracious you are a charmer!

Gene Selkov
February 10, 2013 5:30 am

cui bono says:
> I hesitate to mention Nazi and Soviet school indoctrination in ‘science’ courses.
There has never been a general science course in Soviet schools. There were Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Maths courses. None of them involved any special form of indoctrination that wouldn’t be present to the same degree in other countries. These curricula were broadly adopted from the University of Chicago Lab Schools where they were first developed. They were not bad; Biology and Chemistry courses were excellent. Physics was indeed badly indoctrinated; Newton, Lagrange, Bohr and other big wigs were infallible (were aren’t they?) but it was not a totally bad course from the practical-engineering standpoint.
Instead of indoctrination, there were omissions. For example, Genetics could not be mentioned for a long time; even after the ban had been lifted, nobody rushed to fill the void.
DesertYote says:
> Hmmm, Too funny. Half the comments show the influence of the Marxist propagandists of an earlier age who distorted their schooling, training them to hate Christianity.
I find the Christians’ belief that one needs to be trained to hate Christianity way too presumptuous. If anything, one had to be trained (threatened) to love Christianity. In the Marxist-dominated countries, they simply killed off the priests and the question of hate for Christianity never rose to prominence. Instead, there was a vicious love/hate conflict around Marxism and related ideologies, and I can tell you with confidence that at least three generations of people in Russia didn’t give a rat’s ass about Christianity. Most still don’t, although it has again been adopted as an official cult of the ruling elite.

Goode 'nuff
February 12, 2013 11:34 pm

Sorry Pamela, I am so busy. Am a chicken too. Couldn’t bear to look, suspense was killing me. Would have been totally crushed… had you tole me ta buzz off.
Sounds like we’re near the same age. Love many of the same things. How can I not be charming? Pulls straight out of me… like you’re a magnetic personality.

Pamela Gray
February 17, 2013 9:11 am

So now all we have to figure out is how to say hi. I have not kept it a secret that I live in Pendleton in NE Oregon and work as a teacher. And I post under my real name.