Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 13 March 2024

Like many of the United States, the Commonwealth of Virginia has passed, or is passing, laws, rules, regulations that dictate how the often controversial topic of Climate Change is to be taught in its schools.

The latest  reads like this:

“The Board shall develop, adopt, and make available to each local school board model policies and procedures, based on peer-reviewed scientific sources, pertaining to the selection of instructional materials on climate change and environmental literacy, including a requirement for any such selected material to accurately portray changes in weather and climate patterns over time, the impacts of human activity on changes in weather and climate patterns, and the effects of climate change on people and resources.”

Stephen D. Haner, of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, called my attention to exactly what they are doing in Virginia.  To dig into the issue, we start with Teaching, Learning & Assessment » K-12 Standards & Instruction » Science.  We can find the Middle School (depending on the school district, grades 6-8 or all grades 7-8)  Instructional Plans here.  [Warning, there are lots and lots of them.]

I picked just one sub-topic of Climate Change science that I know something about, having written here on the topic many times, Ocean Acidification [OA for short].  The inestimable Jim Steele has thoroughly covered this issue here as well.

If you are not well-versed in why OA is a climate change topic, or need to be filled in on the basic oceanic chemistry involved, read just this one essay by Jim:  “Un-refutable Evidence of Alarmists’ Ocean Acidification Misinformation in 3 Easy Lessons”.

In my experience, Middle School students are just beginning to be really interested in the world around them and how it works.  If you are not sure of this, go to a Middle School Science Fair in your area.  But because they have not yet learned the underpinning basics of chemistry and physiology (for instance), they are exceptionally easy to mislead with “sciency” explanations for common phenomena.  (Think Al Gore and The Science Guy). 

How are the Middle Schools in Virginia going to teach this?  Here is the abstract:

“Overview:    Lesson plan introducing and exploring via hands-on lab the idea that raising acidity in the world’s oceans is reducing the availability of carbonate, which impacts calcifying organisms such as oysters and sea urchins.

Subject:      Earth and Space Systems, Earth Resources, Living Systems and Processes

Level:      Upper Primary, Middle School Grades:     Grade 5, Grade 6

Material Type:    Lesson Plan

Author:      Erin Brown

Date Added:      07/25/2019“

They offer a video to be shown to the class:  Science Bulletins: Acid Oceans.   The video is out of the University of California at Santa Barbara (my alma mater).  It is not absolutely terrible, but it is dangerously mis-leading for 12 and 13 year-olds.    Refer back to Jim Steele’s primer on ocean carbonate chemistry.   Note that the video only shows that in the lab, sea urchin larvae grow a little less when extreme amounts of CO are bubbled through 5 gallon pails of sea water containing the larvae.  CO2 does not enter sea water by any action that is simulated by “bubbled through” small volumes of sea water

But the worst is yet to come….they offer up a hands-on experiment for the kids to do.  Nothing impresses a young mind more than “seeing for themselves”. 

Here’s the lesson plan:  It is titled “Acidic Oceans Lesson Plan” (it is a .doc file).  Saavy readers can see the problem already.  The oceans are not, and cannot become, acidic.  The oceans (the planet’s sea waters) are chemically basic.  

But, let’s see where they are going with this:

“What phenomenon(a) is/are the focus of this lesson?  Raising acidity in the world’s oceans is reducing the availability of carbonate, which impacts calcifying organisms such as oysters and sea urchins.”

Background:  Shells serve as a protective structure for both marine and terrestrial organisms. Marine ecosystems that depend upon calcium-carbonate to make shells, such as coral reefs or oyster beds, can be impacted by changes in ocean pH due to increased carbon dioxide. In experimental conditions under very high levels of CO2, shells of clams, oysters, corals, snails and urchin shells dissolve. If these organisms are unable to build or repair shells, due to increased acidification caused by industrial emissions, deforestation and other human activities, they will likely cease to exist in these environments.

I don’t think the student’s see this lesson plan itself, and it does have caveats for the teachers:  which contradict the blunt, and misleading, lead-in.

“These results do not occur for all organisms. In experimental conditions, extreme increases in carbon dioxide result in crabs, lobsters, temperate sea urchins, limpets, and calcifying algae all building thicker shells with the more acidic conditions. Some organisms are able to adapt more rapidly than others, some will leave an environment if they cannot adapt and others may cease to exist in that environment. Nutrient levels, water temperature, food availability and habitat changes also can have an impact. Efforts to reduce that impact have the greatest chance of preserving some of these habitats.”

So, teachers are given a bit more nuanced view in that second part.  Do you think the teachers are telling students that some shellfish and some crabs and lobsters actually form better shells with more CO2?  Let’s look at this from the student’s point of view.

1.  They are told CO2 in the atmosphere enters the oceans cause “rising acidity”.

2.  Then they are told that “In experimental conditions under very high levels of CO2, shells of clams, oysters, corals, snails and urchin shells dissolve.”

3.  This is followed by: “…due to increased acidification caused by industrial emissions, deforestation and other human activities, they will likely cease to exist in these environments.”

None of these statements are strictly true, certainly not as received by the as-yet-uneducated minds of Middle School students

Despite the falsity of these assertions, the teach will then have the students demonstrate for themselves that these lies are true:

a.  The teacher shows them the little UCSB video linked above ( link for you ). 

b.  Here is the experimental procedure:

Explore (20 min.):  

1. Using the pH test strip, test the pH of each substance. [lemon juice, vinegar, cola, ammonia, and water]. Knowing what you do after watching the video, predict the effect of the solutions on the pieces of shell. What will happen if I put a piece of egg shell in cola, water, vinegar? Which solution will have the greatest effect on the shell?
2. Put a separate piece of shell into each small dish. Keep one piece in a dish on its own as a control.
3. Use the dropper to place a few drops of selected liquid on the shell piece. Use a different piece of shell for each liquid. Label the dish with the type of liquid you used. 
4. Watch what happens. What do you observe? Which liquids react with the shell first?
5. From your observation on the eggshell, what might be some consequences of ocean acidification for animals with shells? How might you test this hypothesis? 
6. Allow the shell pieces to sit overnight, then make another set of observations.

If you are not horrified yet by the mis-application of the scientific method in the above example, take a look at the explanation the teacher is instructed to give them:

Explain (10 min.):  Allow students to share observations and theories.  This activity allows you to see firsthand the effects ocean acidification can have on calcifying organisms. When exposed to vinegar, which is an acid, the calcified eggshell produces CO2 bubbles as it dissolves. The shells and skeletons of live calcifying organisms can be similarly affected as the ocean acidifies. If shell-building organisms are affected then all of the organisms that depend on them will also be impacted.  Have students brainstorm ways to reduce CO2 emissions.

If the student’s are not sufficiently traumatized by the news that all the lobsters and clams and sea urchins are going to be dissolved alive, the teachers then directs (for 40 minutes):

Elaborate/Evaluate (40 min.):  Have students do some research on a shellfish of their choice to determine its place in a food web.  Students should illustrate the food web, and then write a paragraph describing how the acidification of the ocean affects not only the shellfish itself, but also other organisms in its food web.  Students may also include some ideas on how to reduce human CO2 emissions.

Anyone see a pattern there?  Mis-leading, exaggerated basic chemistry is used teach that the shells and skeletons of living sea organisms can “be similarly affected” – meaning dissolved – “as the ocean acidifies”.    The emphasis always ends with “how to reduce human CO2 emissions.”

Readers with middle school children (in Virginia and elsewhere) should do something – starting with asking their children everyday, “What did you learn about in school today?”  And then be prepared to re-educate them. 

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Author’s Comment:

Science is not hard but ridding our schools of this kind of extreme advocacy is nearly impossible when our “experts” mouth these lies without blinking.

Egg shells do dissolve in acidic household solutions and don’t dissolve in water (neutral)  or ammonia (basic).  Instead of tricking the student into thinking that eggshells (or clam shells) will someday dissolve in sea water, they might have had students add drops of vinegar into a cup of water until their pH strips showed a pH of 8.1 (pH of sea water) and then dripped that on eggshells.  Nothing would happen. They could repeat this to discover how much vinegar they would have to add to a cup of water to lower the pH to less than 7.  Drip on eggshells.  Nothing happening, repeat and repeat.   This lesson may lead to a different interpretation. 

No person should be teaching science topics in middle school if they cannot see that the Virginia OA lesson is not only not good science, but it is mostly just plain false.   What it is not is just “dumbed down for middle school”   

It is simply indoctrination.

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