An analysis of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and support materials for grades K-12 shows a dark green trend. Activist environmentalism is being interwoven into the curriculum, not just in earth or environmental science.
A review of professional development programs for N.C. teachers shows a similar rise in the number of courses aimed at helping teachers integrate environmentalism into their pedagogy. Many of these courses educate teachers on how to expose students to complex public-policy issues, such as population dynamics, sustainable development, carbon footprints, and biodiversity, and to encourage them to become agents of social change.
North Carolina, like the rest of the nation, faces a shortage of certified science teachers. In 2002, a National Center for Education Statistics report found that 49 percent of middle-school students in the United States are taught science by teachers with little or no training in science, often meaning no degree in science.
Since 1997, however, the Office of Environmental Education, supported by the General Assembly, the EPA, and other organizations, has offered an environmental education certification program for teachers. Across the state, there are 180 environmental education centers.
The Office of Environmental Education website touts its achievement in “providing significant input to the National Assessment for Education Progress 2009 Science Framework.” The website says, “The original draft had removed practically all of the environmental science content and environment education concept.”
While the performance of U.S. students in science and math continues to fall further behind their global counterparts and recently released preliminary results from No Child Left Behind tests show many Triangle schools failing to meet federal standards, N.C. public schools are increasingly focusing on social, gender, and eco-justice issues.
Lack of cooperation
To conduct research for this article, elementary, middle, and high schools from Wake, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Orange, Guilford, Durham, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg were contacted. Of the 16 schools reached, three teachers agreed to an interview.
Most school officials, after learning the article would be about environmental education in the schools, asked specific details on the context of the article and said their central office prohibited them from speaking to the media without permission from their public relations staff. No public relations staff returned phone calls or emails. Voice and e-mail messages for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s middle and secondary science section chief were not returned.
Hidden agenda: socialism, mysticism, and activism
A surface review of the state Standard Course of Study with its competency goals for science and other subjects across grade levels would likely not draw attention to the growing focus on environmentalism. Only after downloading the support documents and clicking on a complicated maze of additional links on the DPI website can one find the materials that teachers are using in the classroom to promote an activist environmental agenda.
Supporters of environmental education believe it’s important to raise awareness about climate change. Lynne Gronback, an environmental science teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough, said it would “be unethical not to have students learn environmental science because it incorporates all the sciences. Students have to breathe air, drink water, eat food, so they should consider how what they do impacts the environment.” Gronback said she took her students on a field trip last year to an organic farm in Chapel Hill to learn about environmentally friendly farming that used an integrated power system and that had a low carbon footprint.
“Environmental science demands high cognition skills and that’s what we want,” Gronback said. “In 2002, the state added earth/environmental science as a graduation requirement, one of few states that requires it,” Gronback said.
Tim Toben of WorldLink (www.powershiftnow.org) credits Gronback as the architect and champion of environmental education in N.C. public schools beginning five years ago. Gronback, however, was reticent to accept full credit, saying it was a team effort, including Toben, who helped win support from DPI to expand environmental science education in public schools.
WorldLink is the producer of Power Shift, a video on renewable energy. Toben said about five years ago, his organization gave more than 1,000 free copies of the video to universities and schools around the United States, including North Carolina, to educate teachers and students about renewable, clean energy.
WorldLink’s website states that its audience is middle and high school teachers and students and that its purpose-mission is to cultivate “design scientists” who “think and act as global citizens” and who “influence social change.”
Gronback said she uses Power Shift in her classroom, and the state Standard Course of Study has a link to the video in its support document for earth-environmental science. When asked whether she brings in speakers or provides information about opposing views on the environmental debate, Gronback said her students make up their own minds.
“It’s hard to get change unless you get people singing the same song loud enough,” Gronback said. “Environmental education in schools gives students an access point to learn about the issues. North Carolina students now have to do a graduation project, so it’s a good thing to want them to do this because it incorporates all the sciences.”
Gronback volunteers with NC Green Power and is involved with the Environmental Education Fund, a N.C. nonprofit that supports environmental education programs and a public environmental education campaign. The Fund’s website states that it “monitors the need for these efforts through surveys of the general public and teachers.”
Tiffany Rich, an instructional resource teacher at Brier Creek Elementary School in Raleigh, said her school has recycling programs and an energy savers program, among other resources, to teach children about the environment.
Candace Leverette, a geology, physics, microbiology, and forensics teachers at Aycock Middle School in Greensboro, said she focuses mainly on earth science. Aycock is a science and technology magnet school. Leverette said she recently secured a $2,500 grant to expand the school’s landscaping program, one of several hands-on activities they use to reinforce student learning. “We also invite local landscapers to talk with the students,” Leverette said, “and we’ve taken students on trips to local rock quarries and visited caves to give them more hands-on learning about geology and science.”
The notion of teaching children that doing things for the environment, sacrificing personal freedom and comfort, bearing greater economic hardship, having fewer children, and giving the government greater control over one’s life all for the greater good is a consistent underlying message in many of the materials and resources, as is the notion that nature is inherently more noble than mankind.
NC Learn (http://www.learnnc.org/scos/) provides curricular materials aligned to the NC Standard Course of Study for all grades. Clicking through each of the grades and subjects, one can find the learning objectives and associated resources. In one example for K-1, a related link suggests a lesson plan where teachers introduce children to the notion of pet overpopulation in North Carolina. Others discuss the disappearance of animal and plant species because of human overpopulation.
National Geographic’s Xpedition link on NC Learn offers a number of programs for teachers and students, one of which has children in grades one through five drawing conclusions about human settlement patterns based on photos of beaches, with the discussion to center around how human actions modify the environment.
On Sci-Link, teachers can link to lesson plans, workshops, and other resources aligned to the state Standard Course of Study. Rain forest preservation and biodiversity are central themes in language arts, math, science, and social studies courses. Teachers also help students learn to build a nature trail or launch a Save Our Mountains campaign.
Perhaps the most surprising resource among the support documents on the DPI website is a link to a set of educator role plays by NOVA, called “World in the Balance” (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/roleplay/) that focus on population and global warming. Children take the role of Chinese government officials, environmental activists, immigration activists, and so forth, where they debate and negotiate public-policy issues, such as population control, energy consumption, treaties, and governmental control. In “Who Will Take the Heat,” the presupposition is that global warming is caused by human factors and that by changing human-induced factors, the dangers will subside.
Students are told that while all “richer, industrialized countries” are at fault, “people in the U.S. use more fossil-fuel energy per person than in any other country.” They are also told that “all of the richer countries have democratically elected governments whose leaders are focused on doing things that benefit voters today.” The implication is that democracy leads to short-term, selfish thinking.
Students are tasked with negotiating climate change agreements. They also write position and research papers dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and other issues related to global climate change.
In another interesting link to teacher development and student activities provided by Tim Toben of PowerShift, The Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World at Timberlake Farm, a 165-acre earth sanctuary, in Whitsett, N.C., is also promoted by the Office for Environmental Education.
The Center draws on the philosophies of ecotheologian Thomas Berry and Creation Spiritualist Matthew Fox to teach children that the natural world is a sacred reality not a commodity. Fox is renowned for A.W.E., which stands for ancestral wisdom education. These views have their roots in ancient mysticism, pantheism, and even Wicca, all of which are Earth-centered or a blend of Earth/science-based philosophies.
While public school students do learn real science, the problem critics say is that an increasing number of students are being taught controversial theories as though they are accepted scientific facts without having opposing views presented. Educators are moving beyond pedagogy into the realm of advocacy, critics say.
Karen McMahan is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.