[GreenYes] Re: NSTA takes a "pass" on science

[Stephan Pollard <stephan.pollard@no.address>]

Now, here is what the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has 
to say.

http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=52977 
<http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=52977>

Warm Regards,

Stephan



<http://www.nsta.org/pressroom%26news_story_ID=52977>At 03:05 PM 
11/30/2006, you wrote:

> *Science a la Joe Camel*
>
> By Laurie David
>
> Washington Post
> Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01
>
> At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the 
> first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every 
> student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
>
> The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global 
> warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made 
> the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National 
> Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their 
> classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
>
> The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
>
> In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special 
> interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they 
> didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw 
> "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free 
> DVDs.
>
> Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical 
> run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been 
> enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and 
> is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
>
> Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one 
> more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, 
> would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, 
> especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it 
> turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
>
> That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done 
> everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming 
> and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading 
> newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade 
> emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of 
> scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that 
> heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The 
> company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive 
> Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose 
> emission limits.
>
> It's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch 
> of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle 
> cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.
>
> And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it 
> has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the 
> association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic 
> networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and 
> learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil 
> has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 
> 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science 
> education.
>
> So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.
>
> In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's 
> foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the 
> way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they 
> graduate from high school.
>
> And Exxon Mobil isn't the only one getting in on the action. Through 
> textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, the oil industry, 
> the coal industry and other corporate interests are exploiting 
> shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of their record 
> profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox.
>
> NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the 
> American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the 
> science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running 
> on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track 
> record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the 
> companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague 
> references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video 
> produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," a shameless 
> pitch for oil dependence.
>
> The education organization also hosts an annual convention -- which is 
> described on Exxon Mobil's Web site as featuring "more than 450 
> companies and organizations displaying the most current textbooks, lab 
> equipment, computer hardware and software, and teaching enhancements." 
> The company "regularly displays" its "many . . . education materials" 
> at the exhibition. John Borowski, a science teacher at North Salem 
> High School in Salem, Ore., was dismayed by NSTA's partnerships with 
> industrial polluters when he attended the association's annual 
> convention this year and witnessed hundreds of teachers and school 
> administrators walk away with armloads of free corporate lesson plans.
>
> Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the 
> curricular offerings included lessons on forestry provided by 
> Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, Borowski says, and the benefits 
> of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.
>
> "The materials from the American Petroleum Institute and the other 
> corporate interests are the worst form of a lie: omission," Borowski 
> says. "The oil and coal guys won't address global warming, and the 
> timber industry papers over clear-cuts."
>
> An API memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succinctly 
> explains why the association is angling to infiltrate the classroom: 
> "Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science 
> will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose 
> Kyoto-like measures in the future."
>
> So, how is any of this different from showing Gore's movie in the 
> classroom? The answer is that neither Gore nor Participant 
> Productions, which made the movie, stands to profit a nickel from 
> giving away DVDs, and we aren't facing millions of dollars in lost 
> business from limits on global-warming pollution and a shift to 
> cleaner, renewable energy.
>
> It's hard to say whether NSTA is a bad guy here or just a sorry victim 
> of tight education budgets. And we don't pretend that a two-hour movie 
> is a substitute for a rigorous science curriculum. Students should 
> expect, and parents should demand, that educators present an honest 
> and unbiased look at the true state of knowledge about the challenges 
> of the day.
>
> As for Exxon Mobil -- which just began a fuzzy advertising campaign 
> that trumpets clean energy and low emissions -- this story shows that 
> slapping green stripes on a corporate tiger doesn't change the beast 
> within. The company is still playing the same cynical game it has for 
> years.
>
> While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they're teaching 
> with all this, there are 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles 
> warehouse, waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may 
> want to keep a sharp eye on their kids' science homework.
>
> /laurie@no.address <mailto:laurie@no.address>
> /
> /Laurie David, a producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," is a Natural 
> Resources Defense Council trustee and founder of StopGlobalWarming.org./



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