Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 13 March 2024
Like many of the United States, the Commonwealth of Virginia has passed, or is passing, laws, rules, regulations that dictate how the often controversial topic of Climate Change is to be taught in its schools.
The latest reads like this:
“The Board shall develop, adopt, and make available to each local school board model policies and procedures, based on peer-reviewed scientific sources, pertaining to the selection of instructional materials on climate change and environmental literacy, including a requirement for any such selected material to accurately portray changes in weather and climate patterns over time, the impacts of human activity on changes in weather and climate patterns, and the effects of climate change on people and resources.”
Stephen D. Haner, of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, called my attention to exactly what they are doing in Virginia. To dig into the issue, we start with Teaching, Learning & Assessment » K-12 Standards & Instruction » Science. We can find the Middle School (depending on the school district, grades 6-8 or all grades 7-8) Instructional Plans here. [Warning, there are lots and lots of them.]
I picked just one sub-topic of Climate Change science that I know something about, having written here on the topic many times, Ocean Acidification [OA for short]. The inestimable Jim Steele has thoroughly covered this issue here as well.
If you are not well-versed in why OA is a climate change topic, or need to be filled in on the basic oceanic chemistry involved, read just this one essay by Jim: “Un-refutable Evidence of Alarmists’ Ocean Acidification Misinformation in 3 Easy Lessons”.
In my experience, Middle School students are just beginning to be really interested in the world around them and how it works. If you are not sure of this, go to a Middle School Science Fair in your area. But because they have not yet learned the underpinning basics of chemistry and physiology (for instance), they are exceptionally easy to mislead with “sciency” explanations for common phenomena. (Think Al Gore and The Science Guy).
How are the Middle Schools in Virginia going to teach this? Here is the abstract:
“Overview: Lesson plan introducing and exploring via hands-on lab the idea that raising acidity in the world’s oceans is reducing the availability of carbonate, which impacts calcifying organisms such as oysters and sea urchins.
Subject: Earth and Space Systems, Earth Resources, Living Systems and Processes
Level: Upper Primary, Middle School Grades: Grade 5, Grade 6
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Author: Erin Brown
Date Added: 07/25/2019“
They offer a video to be shown to the class: Science Bulletins: Acid Oceans. The video is out of the University of California at Santa Barbara (my alma mater). It is not absolutely terrible, but it is dangerously mis-leading for 12 and 13 year-olds. Refer back to Jim Steele’s primer on ocean carbonate chemistry. Note that the video only shows that in the lab, sea urchin larvae grow a little less when extreme amounts of CO are bubbled through 5 gallon pails of sea water containing the larvae. CO2 does not enter sea water by any action that is simulated by “bubbled through” small volumes of sea water
But the worst is yet to come….they offer up a hands-on experiment for the kids to do. Nothing impresses a young mind more than “seeing for themselves”.
Here’s the lesson plan: It is titled “Acidic Oceans Lesson Plan” (it is a .doc file). Saavy readers can see the problem already. The oceans are not, and cannot become, acidic. The oceans (the planet’s sea waters) are chemically basic.
But, let’s see where they are going with this:
“What phenomenon(a) is/are the focus of this lesson? Raising acidity in the world’s oceans is reducing the availability of carbonate, which impacts calcifying organisms such as oysters and sea urchins.”
Background: Shells serve as a protective structure for both marine and terrestrial organisms. Marine ecosystems that depend upon calcium-carbonate to make shells, such as coral reefs or oyster beds, can be impacted by changes in ocean pH due to increased carbon dioxide. In experimental conditions under very high levels of CO2, shells of clams, oysters, corals, snails and urchin shells dissolve. If these organisms are unable to build or repair shells, due to increased acidification caused by industrial emissions, deforestation and other human activities, they will likely cease to exist in these environments.
I don’t think the student’s see this lesson plan itself, and it does have caveats for the teachers: which contradict the blunt, and misleading, lead-in.
“These results do not occur for all organisms. In experimental conditions, extreme increases in carbon dioxide result in crabs, lobsters, temperate sea urchins, limpets, and calcifying algae all building thicker shells with the more acidic conditions. Some organisms are able to adapt more rapidly than others, some will leave an environment if they cannot adapt and others may cease to exist in that environment. Nutrient levels, water temperature, food availability and habitat changes also can have an impact. Efforts to reduce that impact have the greatest chance of preserving some of these habitats.”
So, teachers are given a bit more nuanced view in that second part. Do you think the teachers are telling students that some shellfish and some crabs and lobsters actually form better shells with more CO2? Let’s look at this from the student’s point of view.
1. They are told CO2 in the atmosphere enters the oceans cause “rising acidity”.
2. Then they are told that “In experimental conditions under very high levels of CO2, shells of clams, oysters, corals, snails and urchin shells dissolve.”
3. This is followed by: “…due to increased acidification caused by industrial emissions, deforestation and other human activities, they will likely cease to exist in these environments.”
None of these statements are strictly true, certainly not as received by the as-yet-uneducated minds of Middle School students
Despite the falsity of these assertions, the teach will then have the students demonstrate for themselves that these lies are true:
a. The teacher shows them the little UCSB video linked above ( link for you ).
b. Here is the experimental procedure:
Explore (20 min.):
- Using the pH test strip, test the pH of each substance. [lemon juice, vinegar, cola, ammonia, and water]. Knowing what you do after watching the video, predict the effect of the solutions on the pieces of shell. What will happen if I put a piece of egg shell in cola, water, vinegar? Which solution will have the greatest effect on the shell?
- Put a separate piece of shell into each small dish. Keep one piece in a dish on its own as a control.
- Use the dropper to place a few drops of selected liquid on the shell piece. Use a different piece of shell for each liquid. Label the dish with the type of liquid you used.
- Watch what happens. What do you observe? Which liquids react with the shell first?
- From your observation on the eggshell, what might be some consequences of ocean acidification for animals with shells? How might you test this hypothesis?
- Allow the shell pieces to sit overnight, then make another set of observations.
If you are not horrified yet by the mis-application of the scientific method in the above example, take a look at the explanation the teacher is instructed to give them:
Explain (10 min.): Allow students to share observations and theories. This activity allows you to see firsthand the effects ocean acidification can have on calcifying organisms. When exposed to vinegar, which is an acid, the calcified eggshell produces CO2 bubbles as it dissolves. The shells and skeletons of live calcifying organisms can be similarly affected as the ocean acidifies. If shell-building organisms are affected then all of the organisms that depend on them will also be impacted. Have students brainstorm ways to reduce CO2 emissions.
If the student’s are not sufficiently traumatized by the news that all the lobsters and clams and sea urchins are going to be dissolved alive, the teachers then directs (for 40 minutes):
Elaborate/Evaluate (40 min.): Have students do some research on a shellfish of their choice to determine its place in a food web. Students should illustrate the food web, and then write a paragraph describing how the acidification of the ocean affects not only the shellfish itself, but also other organisms in its food web. Students may also include some ideas on how to reduce human CO2 emissions.
Anyone see a pattern there? Mis-leading, exaggerated basic chemistry is used teach that the shells and skeletons of living sea organisms can “be similarly affected” – meaning dissolved – “as the ocean acidifies”. The emphasis always ends with “how to reduce human CO2 emissions.”
Readers with middle school children (in Virginia and elsewhere) should do something – starting with asking their children everyday, “What did you learn about in school today?” And then be prepared to re-educate them.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
Science is not hard but ridding our schools of this kind of extreme advocacy is nearly impossible when our “experts” mouth these lies without blinking.
Egg shells do dissolve in acidic household solutions and don’t dissolve in water (neutral) or ammonia (basic). Instead of tricking the student into thinking that eggshells (or clam shells) will someday dissolve in sea water, they might have had students adjust the pH of a cup of water until add drops of vinegar into a cup of water until their pH strips showed a pH of 8.1 (pH of sea water) and then dripped that on eggshells. Nothing would happen. They could repeat this to discover how much vinegar they would have to add to a cup of water to lower the pH to less than 7. Drip on eggshells. Nothing happening, repeat and repeat. This lesson may lead to a different interpretation.
No person should be teaching science topics in middle school if they cannot see that the Virginia OA lesson is not only not good science, but it is mostly just plain false. What it is not is just “dumbed down for middle school”
It is simply indoctrination.
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Apple cider vinegar is great for making bone broth. Coca Cola is also great for dissolving teeth. (Phosphoric acid). So all acids are bad.
Albert ==> Lots of great foods are acidic. Hmmm — try this link.
Pickled beets, pickled eggs, pickled pigs feet, pickled almost anything.
That is how I learned to like Asparagus.
Rhubarb has lots of oxalic acid. That is probably why most recipes call for the addition of baking soda.
It’s mainly in the leaves.
Kip, if this is intended to be a link, it doesn’t work for me.
Clyde ==> Yep — looks like but isn’t — don’t know what happened. Try this one.
Our entire bodies are acidic.
So is rain.
All that rain, neutral to somewhat acidic, flowing constantly via huge rivers into the oceans..
Yet the oceans remain steadfastly around pH 8 +/- a bit. 🙂
Well the rainwater is typically around pH 5 so definitely ‘somewhat acidic’.
I’ll have to check the pH the next time I have salt & vinegar French fries and lemonade. 🙂
Auto repair shops sometimes use Coca Cola to remove rust from nuts/bolts.
But will it remove rust from my joints?
Try Scotch to lubricate joints
Oh, that definitely works, but it makes it a little difficult to operate the tractor…
When I was a submarine crew member (U.S. SSN 1979 – 1983), we were only allowed the use of Coca Cola for rust removal while submerged. It actually works.
Candy is dandy, but Naval Jelly is more effective. (Speaking of oxalic acid, which is usually used for cooling system cleaning.)
Police have a container of it on their trunk to wash blood off the road at accident scenes.
Also will do a swell job of cleaning your toilet.
They use rust removal products that work in a few minutes. Coke would take many hours or even a full day. Vinegar too.
One of the best chemicals for removing rust is phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid is a strong acid that reacts with iron oxide (rust) to form iron phosphate, which can be easily removed. It can be found in many commercial rust removal products or can be purchased in a concentrated form and diluted with water for use.
Richard ==> Wow — lots of comments on rust removal. But, I agree that phosphoric acid is probably the best, but not the safest. In the merchant marine, we used a lot of phosphoric acid to clean rust streaks off of white hull paint.
Phosphoric Acid is classified as a weak acid in chemistry because it doesn’t 100% dissociate all its H+ ions. Do not mistake the weak classification as meaning it isn’t dangerous.
The acid content of Coca Cola is phosphoric acid.
Unfortunately, the “acids bad” is as much part of our culture as “radioactivity bad”.
It doesn’t matter that a whole Iranian town lives and reproduces in an area with, naturally, 30 times the background permitted for radiation workers in the West.
If your finger skin is dry with no cuts, you can dip it into 98% sulphuric acid and feel no ill effects before or after you reach the tap (walk, don’t run) to rinse if off.
It doesn’t matter that the school bully used to drink 0.1N hydrochloric acid when I was in middle school. These things are just “bad”, like the orange man.
And thank you, WUWT for restoring an edit function to comments. My edits were grammar and omitted words, but it doesn’t record that I edited it.
Caution: DO NOT STICK YOUR FINGER INTO ANY CONCENTRATED ACID.
My school mate Des got permanent scars to the face when he added about 5 ml of water to a small dish of concentrated sulphuric acid. It reacts violently with water with exothermic heat release. Water on your finger will assist immediate damage.
That said, thank you Kip for the this article. As a chemical scientist, I say that you are correct and that these school lessons are wrong and harmful, a disgrace to the educational system.
Geoff S
Just think: Our teachers are misleading our young people about climate change.
The teachers themselves may also be victims of these climate change lies. They were students not so long ago.
Yes, our school systems need a lot of reform as the Leftists controlling the schools have screwed everything up royally.
The good news is that people are starting to focus on the faults of the school systems. Reforms are coming.
Tom ==> The Virginia lesson clearly shows that the teachers do not understand the topic of acids and bases — do not understand the pH scale.
Some smart guy check my math, but pH 2 is ten thousand times more acidic than pH 8.
pH 2 = 0.01M and a pH8 = 0.00000001M
6 decimal point difference would be a million X difference.
Geoff ==> “DO NOT STICK YOUR FINGER INTO ANY CONCENTRATED ACID.” And “Do not add water to any concentrated acid”.
Add the acid to water.
Stomach acid (HCl, pH ~2-3) is necessary for digestion.
So, they are just going to continue telling the same lies by changing what they call it. Got it.
You gotta admit “acidification” has a different vibe than “pH reduction”….
Or, “neutralization.”
Or, “less caustic”.
A lie is a lie no matter how it is said.
I was a sub in a high school chemistry class and this is the description of CO2 in the text book.
But Greta can see carbon dioxide.
mkelly ==> Interesting…thanks.
Nothing frightening there, when was that written?
It was a newer book so best I can say is prior to 2015.
Wow, that is some serious propaganda masquerading as science.
Do all of the students have to pledge fealty to a huge portrait of some “Dear Leader” before running the experiment?
pillage ==> Not sure…maybe?
Not yet, but soon.
I would love to have one bright student run the exact same experiment with a buffered solution. Then ask the class why the pH strip is not changing its color despite more acid being added to the solution?
I suspect no one in the class can give the correct answer. (Unless there are a few other bright, self-educated students.) Then explain why your experiment is much closer to the actual situation in the world’s oceans compared to the teacher’s experiment.
You would also probably need to have another student surreptitiously film your experiment, so when you are reported to the principle and they fudge the truth about what you actually said, you will have ample rebuttal evidence.
Unfortunately, many American High School Chemistry teachers would be unable to explain why the pH of a buffered solution does not change on addition of CO2.
pillage and cat ==> Buffered Solutions.
Sea water is a naturally buffered solution: see this .pdf
“Just like our bodies, oceans have natural buffering capacity. This is good news, because a constant
pH is important for marine life. Seawater contains ions, such as chloride and sodium from salt, as
well as calcium, hydrogencarbonate and carbonate ions that are essential for living organisms that
produce calcium carbonate skeletons. These ions are part of the buffering process.
Researching ocean buffering
The oceans’ natural buffer is the carbonate/hydrogencarbonate system. This maintains pH between 8.1 and 8.3,
in a series of equilibrium reactions.
CO2(g) + H2O(l) H2CO3(aq) H(+aq) + HCO−3(aq)”
😎
I remember in our lab at the water plant I worked in I put about 250 ml of DI (Deionized) water on a magnetic stirrer and put a pH probe. It measured very close to 7.0.
I left it there for about 1/2 an hour and the pH dropped to around close to 4.0 due to picking up CO2 from the air.
Added a couple of ml of regular tap water and it shot up to above 7.0.
Why both the drop and rise in pH?
DI water has zero buffering capacity.
(For those who don’t know, a DI system works similar to a zeolite water softener. A softer exchanges the positive ions such as Ca and Mg for Na (sodium) which changes the hardness causing molecules (such as calcium bicarbonate) into non-hardness causing molecules (such as sodium bicarbonate). It doesn’t change alkalinity.
A DI system exchanges the positive ions for H but then also exchanges the negative ion for OH. Your left with H2O. That does change alkalinity and results in zero buffering.)
The new legislation, House Bill 1088, is still pending with Governor Youngkin, who has the option to veto it, offer amendments, or just sign it. That will create a new process for “curriculum” development. But parallel to that the state has existing Science Standards of Learning, which are also on the schedule for review and revision during 2024. The background info for those is where Kip found those existing “lesson plans.”
Stephen ==> Thanks for the update. And thanks for the tip.
Story tip – Bloomberg’s Organization to Fund $200M Climate Initiative › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)
Arguably, neither Greens or Young Earth Creationists want students to know any real science. Or, for that matter, the Plaintiff’s Bar. Keeping the public fat, dumb, and unhappy seems to be their shared goal.
The sad thing is how easy it is to indoctrinate humans. When lies are presented as truth a majority will blindly accept them as such without question.
And, defend to their death, their right to be misled (with apologies to Voltaire).
But despite all this teaching kids about the evils of C02, no one is giving up their fossil fuels, at least willingly, all these kids keep on using it every day, phones, cars, jets, heat, lights, 6000+ products, etc. Kids are smart enough to see the hypocrisy of it all, and they will nod along willingly, until push comes to shove and they will say, “You first!”
J Boles ==> We cannot give up fossil fuels without giving up modern society altogether. It is really that simple.
We could give up gasoline in some cases for passenger car transportation — oil fired power stations (using natural gas instead), and using battery-powered lawn mowers and the like.
Using electricity instead of gasoline means we need a LOT more electricity — which requires massive upgrades to the electrical grid and electrical generation capabilities.
All of which will require virtually 100% energy inputs from fossil fuels. And most of which will use fossil fuels for electric generation, unless (in the second instance) nuclear power is widely embraced.
Seems to me the real takeaway should be the power of buffers in solutions such as ocean waters to maintain stable pH in changing environments.
Buffering is a really interesting topic. Years of swimming pool ownership and a science degree majoring in Chemistry are no guarantee of more than a working understanding.
Forrest ==> My wife and I struggled endlessly with this at a Third World Youth Camp we operated for a summer….that and keeping the pool water clean when in input supply became muddy every time it rained.
The pH scale is basically a measure of the “free” +H ions compared to “free”
-OH ions in a solution.
Lots of things can combine with “free” +H (or -OH) ions without releasing more of the other.
RMoore ==. Quite right, slim. This .pdf explains it very clearly (need some chemistry to understand).
Kip,
Thank you for exposing this overt and deeply disturbing dis-education.
From the New York “Science Learning Standards” at the high school level,
https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/curriculum-instruction/hs-science-learning-standards.pdf
“Students who demonstrate understanding can:..
HS.ESS3-6. Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.* [Clarification Statement: Examples of Earth systems to be considered are the hydrosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere, geosphere, and/or biosphere. An example of the far-reaching impacts from a human activity is how an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide results in an increase in photosynthetic biomass on land and an increase in ocean acidification, with resulting impacts on sea organism health and marine populations.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include running computational representations but is limited to using the published results of scientific computational models.]”
Yikes.
One of the complaints about neural networks (i.e. so-called AI) is that they are ‘Black Boxes’ that users don’t understand. For all practical purposes, General Circulation Models or Earth System Models, which aren’t considered AI, aren’t understood by users either. It is questionable whether even the programmers understand the millions of lines of code a priori either. They can change initial conditions and observe a posteriori results, but considering the large range in ensemble results, it is disingenuous to claim that they really understand what is happening. It is more they have a sense of what is happening, given the large variance of the ensemble averages.
Our educational system is fast becoming a “black box” itself if this post is any indication. 🤬
David ==> Experiments for Middle School have limitations: They have to be totally safe (wasn’t true in my day, but that was ages ago) and simply to do without much supervision.
The household chemicals approach is sound, but the overall lesson is so flawed as to be propaganda.
They utterly fail to use a proxy for sea water itself (pH 8.1-8.2) which is a mild base. They fail to instruct students as to the magnitude of change between pH numbers….
Here’s a Climate Crisis advocacy site, telling (sorta..) the truth:
“On average, the ocean’s pH has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 since the industrial age began. That seemingly small change translates to a 30-percent increase in relative acidity. Scientists forecast a further drop of about 0.3 pH units by the year 2100, lowering pH to 7.8.”
So, they didn’t figure how much more acidic, in percentage of relative acidity, the acids used in the experiment are than sea water.
To get to the base value of 7.8 by 2100? How many percent increase more? Did they teach that the expected (crisis mode) pH value in 2100 will still be BASIC and not even close to acidic?
Extremely far from the pH of Vinegar…..
‘Yale experts explain Ocean Acidification’
“Remember the pH scale from elementary school….There is a number 7 in the middle. Everything lower than 7 is acid, and everything above 7 up to 14 is basic. Before human activity the ocean was 8.2 on that logarithmic scale and we have now moved down by one pH unit to 8.1. The ocean is still basic, as it is still to the right of that value seven, but it has moved in the direction of more acid – which is very serious”
No explanation of what a logarithmic scale means.
https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-ocean-acidification
That is what is commonly claimed today, based on a computer model. However, classic text books from the ’60s report a range of 8.1 to 8.3. As is all too common in ‘climastrology,’ uncertainty ranges are not reported for the computed, measured, and predicted pHs. This results in laymen assuming that all the numbers are known exactly without any potential error.
Yeah it probably hasn’t really changed at all.
What they leave out here is that the above is a modeled result, not a measurement. There are no measured changes in ocean pH beyond one or a few limited locations. “The Science” has adopted the model as gospel, no evidence necessary.
WUWT ought to be required reading for all students because their schools are misleading them about CO2 and the Earth’s climate.
Lesson Plan = Go to WUWT
when was the pH of seawater first measured? When were measurements of ocean pH taken in a large number of locations?
Bicarbonate is the dominant acid in sea water, hydronium ion is not. They are wrong by definition.
Yes, it is. It is the acid side of the HCO₃⁻/CO₃⁻⁻ buffer. And they are the reagents that matter.
But that is why fussing about whether acetic is stronger etc is wrong. All acids stronger than HCO₃⁻ are equivalent. They just react with the strongest alkali CO₃⁻⁻ to produce HCO₃. Doesn’t matter whether it is CO₂ or HCl. Buffering!
pH is just an indicator. It is the ability of the introduced reagent to remove carbonate that counts (acidification). pH 7 means nothing in this buffer context.
Calciforming organisms use bicarbonate (HCO3-) as a substrate for calcification (which btw is an energy-driven process, not a passive salt precipitation). Increasing CO2 (and hence HCO3-) concentrations will make more of this substrate available. Combined with a slightly elevated water temperature, which increase the rate of the underlying enzymatic reactions, this will rather promote calcification. Indeed numerous studies have been published which find no adverse effects of pH on calcification, see e,g. “Calcification is not the Achilles’ heel of cold-water corals in an acidifying ocean. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25641230/
Removed
One has to look at the concentration of the dominant acid(s) within the system. H+ is there at about 10E-8, i.e., basically (pun intended) zero.
One could jump for joy that their stock account increased in value by 100% until it’s realized it went from $0.01 to $0.02.
Nick and others ==> Sea Water carbonate chemistry is not the stuff taught in High School or even most University Chemistry courses.
Once one adds in the organic element (creatures, plants, etc) the complexity increases.
It is subject to a lot of research, most of which passes under the radar of the science media, which is controlled by the climate crisis narrative.
The pragmatic view is presented by studying life surrounding natural CO2 vents on the ocean bottom. Calcifying creatures thrive there. Calcifying creatures thrive in tidal pools where the pH fluctuates wildly through the day.
The evidence level of OA for the greater oceans is weak to very weak. …. but it takes a deep dive [accidental pun ] to discover this and the reasons for it.
“On average, the ocean’s pH has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 since the industrial age began. That seemingly small change translates to a 30-percent increase in relative acidity. Scientists forecast a further drop of about 0.3 pH units by the year 2100, lowering pH to 7.8.”
Utter garbage. There was no way of measuring pH to that precision a century or more ago.
Just more Fake Data.
A compendium of all surface pH reading since around 1900, shows a very slight INCREASE in ocean Ph.
There is absolutely NO POSSIBLE WAY that could know the oceans have changed from pH 8.2 to 8.1 over the last100 or so years.
We can’t even measure the whole-of-ocean pH now.
Under there 30% change nonsense.. it would require a further (approx) 2000% change to even get to neutral pH7.
These guys are scientific IDIOTS. !!
“”taught in its schools.””
A la BBC
“”Human activities are causing world temperatures to rise, with more intense heatwaves and rising sea-levels among the consequences.
Things are likely to worsen in the coming decades…””
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24021772
How to compete with reach like that?
No mention of the fact that there was lots of clams around when the atmosphere had 5 times as much CO2? Overt lies in the lesson plan and lies by omission completing the indoctrination.
Human-caused climate change is a *pack* of lies. The whole thing is a lie.
“Note that the video only shows that in the lab, sea urchin larvae grow a little less when extreme amounts of CO are bubbled through 5 gallon pails of sea water containing the larvae.”
You see the same thing distressingly often in the biomedical literature:
“We couldn’t see any effect at physiologically relevant levels. So we raised the concentrations in the petri dish (96 well plate) until the little bastards really began to squeal. This is the basis for our scientific conclusions.”
michael ==> Yes, very common. I follow a couple of medical journals. Lots of silly science.
Of which, roughly half is reported as not being replicable.
If you cut off a frog’s legs, it loses its hearing and sense of touch. No matter how much you scream at it to jump or poke it with a stick, it just lays there.
Similar.
“A scientist is studying a flea.
He yells, “JUMP!
The flea jumps and the scientist measures and records the distance. 6 inches.
He pulls of a leg and again yells, “JUMP!” 5 inches.
One more leg, 4 inches.
Etc.
Pulls off the last leg, 0 inches.
The scientist concludes, “No legs left. Flea can’t hear.”
Are the children also fitted out with brown shirts and socialist manifestos? Seems appropriate given the obvious indoctrination and intent to misleed.
In whose twisted mind does this lesson plan meet the explicitly stated standard…
“… based on peer-reviewed scientific sources, pertaining to the selection of instructional materials on climate change and environmental literacy, including a requirement for any such selected material to accurately portray changes in weather and climate patterns over time, the impacts of human activity on changes in weather and climate patterns, and the effects of climate change on people and resources.”
Ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever.
David ==> Yes, totally a violation of letter of the law. When they say “peer-reviewed scientific sources” they mean the IPCC and State Climate Reviews etc.
They meN they want the intended bias baked in.
And, once mis-educated, it is very difficult to correct later in life. Many decades ago I read (Science Digest?) about an experiment in which sailors were taught a particular hand motion to tie a knot. They were then taught a second method of tying the same knot. They were put under stressful conditions and told to tie the knot. Almost all of the sailors reverted to the way they were first taught. It is a cautionary tale about the importance of students being taught properly the first time.
A real life example is British Midland Airways Flight 092 in 1989. Despite having learned about changes in the newer 737 they were flying, when faced with a stressful situation, smoke entering the cockpit, the pilots reverted to operating their aircraft as though it was one of the older models they had more experience flying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster
It is interesting to compare this Virginia educational guide to the long-term controversy around teaching evolution in the same state. While a large area of Virginia state is rural, and at least nominally fundamentalist, there seems to be statewide rules that specifically prevent creattionism and intelligent design as being taught as science.
It is possible to teach middle school students the fundamentals of critical thought and scientific skepticism. It takes teachers who are capable of those skills to accomplish this.
dk_ ==> No comparable — Evolution is most often mis-taught — taught as a simple fact rather than a self-limiting well-supported theory. The changing of species over time is not in question…but the Grand Vision is not supported by the Basic Darwinism…millions of pro-survival mutations over millions of years — not so much.
I have written about this here.
This is an alarming piece, these kids will carry this forever. How does this compare
with private schools in that area ?
I was indoctrinated during my high school sophomore year by being required to take a class
that featured the Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. This was in addition to the usual basics
of math, science, english, history stuff. The teacher was a newish young gal that was flirty
with some of the guys sitting near the front. This has been going on for a while. I was not
particularly interested but always tried to get good grades in all my classes. Later during the
spring I recall the 1st Earth Day was part of that class. That town also had a very strong
religious connection to the school system via the churches. Grades 1-6 had “Tuesday School”
and 7-12 had “Wednesday School” where we were let out to attend religious study at our church.
Mr Ed ==> Nothing wrong with Religious Education/Study — it just isn’t to be confused with science, astronomy, geology, and only vaguely history.
A majority of scientists hold deep religious beliefs.
I attended school in 6 towns in 4 states but that was the only place where
I was let out of school to go to church 3hrs a week. I had a lot of afterschool
activities in all the other places that had a very positive effect on me including
church activities. The Cub Scout then Boy Scout programs, 4H, sporting
programs to name a few, but I never missed any classroom time for those.
My first algebra teacher Mr Paulson asked me if I would be interested in
his Chess Club and I said yes. That led me to study chess seriously
over the those years. A few years later when I drew a low draft number and
went into the Navy I used that skill one evening when I watched a group of
twidgets playing chess on the mess deck. After they finished their set
I asked if I could play next, I was a seaman duece green boot and that got a couple
of chuckles from those collage grad missile/weapon techs..I finished my first match
with a standard 12 move checkmate I learned in highschool and made
few new friends…Life can take you down some interesting paths–if you let it.
I always wanted to write a chess program. I had some ideas, but the commercial games quickly surpassed my efforts, so I switched to compilers and language processors.
I had my first programing class in ’69, we did a paper punch tape
basic X&O. They were just beginning to move all our record transcript’s to
digital with that system.
The chess program was an elective at that school and it was
taught like a regular class. I never went to the tournaments but did
take it seriously. I played a good bit of chess during sea duty
with a couple of sonar techs. We had magnetic pieces that made it
games possible during some of the rougher seas.
I’m not sure I would agree with “majority.” Do you have a citation?
Clyde ==> I speak there from my personal experience — but there have been studies.
There are several recent studies: Pew in 2009 :
“According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power;”
and more recently, in 2016 from the American Sociological Assoc.
“We uncovered that in most of the national contexts studied, scientists are indeed more secular—in terms of beliefs and practices—than those in their respective general populations, although in four of the regional contexts, over half of scientists see themselves as religious. And surprisingly, scientists do not think science is in conflict with religion. Instead, most see religion and science as operating in separate spheres.”
Kip, not to quibble, but I wouldn’t say that “deeply religious” is equivalent to believing in “some form of deity or higher power.” Do you ever watch the Closer To Truth PBS program with Robert Laurence Kuhn?
One of my computer professors pushed the population bomb on us. I believed it for a while, but it was basically nonsense. The only way to save us from a large die-back was to reduce the world’s population to something like a billion. That’s a lot of deaths to avoid a die-back. Of course, there were lots of computer data involved–and computers MUST be believed.
Glad I’m not still at school.
Back then, the teachers used to just wallop our bums and hands with canes or straps. Maybe an occasional clip upside the head.
But for some strange reason, they treated our minds as sacrosanct, a space to be filled with useful knowledge that would underpin our forthcoming navigation of the world’s highways and by-ways.
But now how things have changed –
no longer do
teacherseducators apply physical measures to assist students’ learning, nowadays they just assault and abuse students’ minds with arrant bullshit.Hey!
Teachers!
Leave them kids alone.
All in all
They’re just a
Nother kick in the balls.
Aside from the “bad science” aspects of this VA teaching guide as descibed by Kip, it is simply wrong to use the term “acidify” in the context of climate change.
Something, anything, can only be “acidified” if it has a pH of 7.0 or less. Any substance with a pH of greater that 7.0 can only be made less basic, or more basic (“basified?”). A basic substance cannot be made more acidic – it defies chemical science and human logic.
Also, climate change cannot cause the pH of the seas to change. Climate is temperature, humidity, and wind movement. It is not chemistry. Adding CO2 to water is a chemical change, not a climate change. Conflating the two is illogical and unscientific.
Of course these ignorant knuckleheads never discuss the carbon cycle in seawater – they just pretend that bubbling lots of CO2 in water completely explains the earth.
And these scientific morons claim that the skeptics are “anti science” troglodytes.
It is a contradiction of terms.
Duane ==> It is a trick of language — to lower a pH is to “acidify” a solution. A solution can only be classified as an acid if it has a pH below 7.
Only if the temperature is 25ºC, at 0ºC in the Arctic Ocean neutral is pH 7.4.
End of ocean chemistry lesson for middle schoolers.
However, the tongues of biased educators may become very acidic. This is normal when their true beliefs are exposed as bogus.
Thank you, Kip. Where is the teaching-section on buffering? 🙂 Clearly, this is an example of trying to teach the children to run before they can walk. I’m reminded of the old joke, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.” My contribution, “Those who can’t even teach teachers become politicians.” In a rational world, children would be taught fundamentals so that they can understand all situations, not just the current consensus paradigm.
A reminder: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/15/are-the-oceans-becoming-more-acidic/
More like teaching them to use a wheelchair and telling them their legs won’t work.
Probably because climate change.
It’s fair to say more dissolved CO2 will change the ocean pH slightly. But the claimed change of average pH of 0.1 is too small to measure.
The most important climate lesson that will never be taught:
There have been predictions of global warming doom since 1979. Every one has been wrong and no one was harmed. Winters are warmer. And plants grow larger from more CO2 in the air. Where is the bad news? It is only in the imagination.
Recess.
Go outside and enjoy the climate.
Yes! Imagine the wailing when a cooling trend sets in, if we’re around to see it.
A good dose of freezing your ass off will cure the fear of a warmer climate poste haste.
Of course, the way the current generation is being educated, they’ll just feed them that “the warming (we supposedly caused) caused the cooling” stupidity and the useful idiots will be out in lab coats braying about “believing science.”
🙄 🙄 🙄
The experiment as described in the article is misleading in a variety of ways. First of all, a hen’s egg (if fertilized) is meant to protect a developing chick in an environment (on land) that is either dry or in contact with fresh water (neutral pH) or slightly acidic rain water. Hens don’t lay eggs in the ocean! Pouring fresh water over an egg shell will likely have no effect, while acids like vinegar, lemon juice, and cola will damage an egg shell, as would ammonia water, which is strongly alkaline. Cola is obviously carbonated, so that any CO2 bubbles result from de-gassing if the egg shell is warmer than the cola container. The main ingredient in vinegar is acetic acid, which contains a carboxyl (-COOH) group in the molecule, which can easily react and emit CO2.
Shellfish are accustomed to living in a wet alkaline environment (pH ~ 8.1), with plenty of dissolved salts, including high concentrations of Na+, Mg++, and Ca++ ions. These dissolved salts act as a buffer against acidification, and some dissolved carbonates or bicarbonates are essential for the manufacture of calcium carbonate shells. If a student takes a dry clam shell and pours distilled water over it, the (neutral) water is more acidic than the normal marine environment of the clam shell, and could cause mild bleaching.
Pouring vinegar over a clam shell is definitely overkill for this type of experiment. The dissociation constant for acetic acid at 25 C is about 1.8(10^-5), while that for carbonic acid is 4.5(10^-7), meaning that acetic acid is 40 times more acidic than an equal concentration of carbonic acid. A clam shell in its normal environment would never be exposed to a solution as acidic as vinegar.
Many middle-school students may be familiar with campfires. If the student sits a few feet away from a bonfire on a cold night, the fire provides welcome warmth. If the student holds his/her hand in the flames, it gets severe burns. For the clam shell, a little carbonic acid is like sitting a few feet away from the bonfire, and the vinegar is the equivalent of throwing the clam shell into the fire.
Borate ions are also part of the overall buffering system in the oceans. Also, many calcifiers either protect their surface with chitin, and/or produce mucous to provide a barrier between sea water and the carbonate they have produced with the expenditure of energy.
More like “teaching non-science.”
We can just abbreviate to “nonsense.”