The Florida Department of Education will show videos that deny the Earth’s changing climate in schools in the state. According to the Guardian, the public school curriculum in Florida will include animations from the Prager University Foundation. This is a conservative group that supports lies about sustainable energy and global warming.
The Prager University Foundation website states that the organization isn’t an accredited university, and they don’t claim to be. The reality is that it is a media platform and advocacy group created and run by right-wing radio host Dennis Prager.
The organization has several videos that showcase different opinions on delicate subjects like racism, slavery, sexuality, and climate science.
The videos that will be in the curriculum for kindergarten kids to fifth graders showcase characters that debate some sustainable actions. For example, they could switch to renewable energy, reduce plastic use, and move towards clean energy sources.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been advocating against so-called “woke” issues for a while. More particularly, the governor has been opposing human activities linked to increased global temperatures. These days, videos that include climate-denial ideas could be shown to school children as young as five years old.
Adrienne McCarthy, a researcher at Kansas State University, spoke to the Guardian about why the new curriculum is a bad idea. “It’s propaganda 101,” she said. “Equating people concerned about climate change with Nazis can have long-term impacts on young, impressionable people. The beliefs PragerU are pushing forward overlap with far-right extremist beliefs. The fear is that they will bring this sort of extremist beliefs into mainstream society.”
Furthermore, Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, interpreted one of the videos in a piece for Mother Jones. She showed how the videos are trying to convince viewers to ignore the results of scientific research.
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It isn’t an easy task to change people’s minds. It could even be more challenging to stop educational boards from teaching young children false information. However, everyone needs to maintain efforts to create a sustainable environment.
Regardless of the new videos kids will see in their classrooms, climate activists shouldn’t be afraid to air their opinions. They could easily set precedence for positive change by encouraging the use of electric cars, recycling correctly, switching to renewable energy, and more.
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The truth remains that children don’t do all their learning in the classroom. They also learn from their experience and interaction beyond their schools at home. So, parents still have a significant role to play in ensuring that children learn what they believe is scientific fact.
Also, some parents and school bodies don’t buy into the idea of showing kids videos from the Prager University Foundation. So they could raise their concerns with their local school boards or local politicians. This could significantly impact curbing or halting the spread of misinformation in classrooms.
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