Portland School System Bans Teaching Materials That Cast Doubt on Climate Change

Eric Chaney
Published: May 23,2016

Members of the Portland school board consider a bill to make all students "climate literate."
(Screenshot courtesy of PPS)

A resolution passed by the Portland, Oregon, school board will eliminate words like “may,” “might” and “could” from the district’s curriculum. But it’s not English lessons where these words will cease to appear; rather, it's in science classes, in the context of climate change and its causes.Last week, the Portland Public School board unanimously passed a resolution which directs schools to “abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its root in human activities.”
The resolution broadly calls for all Portland schools to “develop an implementation plan for climate literacy.”
“What we’re looking for is a whole different model of curriculum development and distribution,” Bill Bigelow, a former teacher for Portland Public Schools and current curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine, told the Portland Tribune.
(MORE: Man-Made Climate Change is Fueling Extreme Weather Events, Report Says)
“A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt,” he added.
Bigelow quoted a textbook, Physical Science, published by Pearson: “Carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles, power plants and other sources, may contribute to global warming.”
“Obviously, the science says otherwise,” he told the Tribune.
The PPS resolution was introduced by school board member Mike Rosen, who leads NW Ecoliteracy Collaborative, a project focused on environmental curriculum standards.
“It is essential that in their classes and other school activities students probe the causes and consequences of the climate crisis — as well as possible solutions … and, from pre-K through 12th grade, become 'climate literate,'" the resolution reads.
(MORE: Climate Change Poses Urgent Health Risk, White House Says)
At least one student backed the board’s move, calling the current curriculum and textbooks “unacceptable,” the Tribune reports.
“Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world,” Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux said in board testimony.
Climate literacy is essential for the success of Portland Public Schools students, the resolution says, both as members of their communities and citizens of the world.
"We will need to prepare our students for robust job opportunities in green technologies, construction, and restoration efforts," the study says.
Teaching climate change isn't always easy. A survey conducted by Science Magazine in 2014 found that although more than 95 percent of active climate scientists attribute recent global warming to human causes, only about half of U.S. adults believe the same thing. Craig Whipkey, who works the subject into his science curriculum at Central Valley High School in western Pennsylvania, told Michigan Public radio that he gets called "tree hugger" a lot.
But, "It’s really unfair not to teach kids the accurate science," Minda Berbeco, policy director for the National Center for Science Education, told MPR. "It’s really unfair to not demonstrate what the evidence shows and what the data shows."
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