Teachers in Maryland are about to get new help and encouragement to talk about the touchy topic of global warming in their classrooms. The National Science Foundation announced Wednesday that it is awarding $5.8 million for improving climate-change education in Maryland and Delaware through a partnership including universities and school systems from both states.
The two-state initiative is one of six such education projects the foundation is funding across the country and in the nation’s Pacific island territories.
“At this point in our existence it’s really important people understand about climate, why it’s changing and what our options are,” said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and one of the leaders of the Maryland-Delaware partnership.
The effort aims to bring together scientists, teachers and those who train teachers to develop new lessons and instructional materials for conveying the complex — and, to some at least, controversial — issue of how and why the Earth’s climate is changing.
As a Marylander, I would like to follow the money on this one. Who requested this grant? Who specifically at the NSF, or behind the NSF, awarded it? Who has approved the use of the resulting program in the schools? Where can we find the curricula? Will parents have an opportunity to have some input? Will the materials be reviewed by some impartial scientists? I’d like to see every last detail of this program before an entire generation of Maryland schoolchildren falls prey to it.
Can they be put under house arrest on suspicion of complicity in the intellectual destruction of our children?
No, they will be promoted.