Purpose: To call for a Parliamentary Inquiry into the teaching of science in schools.
Background. It is clear from a growing number of reports that there is widespread circulation of false and misleading information about climate science in schools.
Steps to introduce common courses across the nation have contributed to this situation.
Misinformation is provided by teachers functioning as green activists and some is taught by teachers who do not know any better.
The critical issue. Public debate on climate and energy issues will only be helpful when everyone has access to reliable and diverse information and there is civil discussion of competing ideas.
This debate cannot be helpful while cohorts of students emerge every year from the school system after K-12 exposure to misleading information and politicized science.
This must be a matter of serious concern for all politicians and other people who are concerned about the way the common curriculum is being used to promote radical and politically correct views.
Recommendation: That the Commonwealth government initiate a Parliamentary Inquiry into the teaching of science in the schools.
*SUPPORTING INFORMATION*
The most recent account of the teaching situation comes from the author and journalist Tony Thomas in June 2021 reporting the launch of a handbook by the National Primary-School Teachers’ Association. https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/06/a-teachers-guide-to-miseducation/
Notes to the manual say, Chapter 9 is a call for action. Without students taking personal action to mitigate climate change, there is no point to this book.
An extract from the Tony Thomas story
It’s an error-ridden 174-page blueprint that quarantines kids from any acknowledgement that costly wind and solar farms must be backed up by 24-7 baseload power.
The blueprint would have kids chanting North Korean-style “an Earth-focused school or class ‘anthem’ at assemblies. (This) is a great way to build emotional attachment to the planet”. The authors suggest such lyrics as
Earth is getting warmer, oceans rising higher
Storms are growing stronger, floods and fire
We know about the dangers, know there must be changes
The future is in our hands
The blueprint is called Teaching the language of climate change science, and is issued by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia (PETAA) for its 3500 members and teachers generally. One author is Julie Hayes (left), retired principal of Cowandilla Primary School, SA, which has been “a Climate Change Focus School” for the past 20 years. The co-author is Dr Bronwyn Parkin (right), a literacy-linguistics specialist at Adelaide University. Both are listed as PETAA directors.
The indoctrination was vetted by a 20-person academic panel. Its only card-carrying climate scientist was Professor Chris Turney of UNSW.[1] Turney’s wife, Annette, a tutor and PhD student at Wollongong University, was a co-panellist. , is famous for leading the expedition to the Antarctic in 2013 to spruik global warming there. The ship got stuck in the ice that wasn’t supposed to be there and the climate scientists and joy-riders had to be extricated by a series of rescue vessels at huge expense and disruption to real science down there.
The authors excuse their simplified claims on the ground that kids are too young for hard science. But they are happy to indoctrinate kids with nonsense about climate-caused starving polar bears etc.
Articles by Tony Thomas.
Primary English Teachers Association launches global-warming activist manual for kids 5-14yo
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/06/a-teachers-guide-to-miseducation/
Federal and State Education Ministers sponsor green/Left biased resources portal (“Scootle”) for schools nationally
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/11/beware-parents-your-kids-are-being-scootled/
At least 550 schools are promoting an error-ridden Green propaganda film/fantasy “2040” by Damon Gameau
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/04/making-kids-shrill-scared-and-stupid/
Green/left lobby Cool Australia’s teaching templates are now being used by 52,540 teachers in 6,676 primary and high schools (71% of total schools). 3.2m students used the material in 2020.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2016/12/teach-em-green-raise-em-stupid/
More on Cool Australia here
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/04/get-em-young-make-em-green/
and here – which includes WWF Earth Hour nonsense for schools
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2017/01/earth-hour-3d-dim-dark-dopey/
Australian Academy of Science school material (ca 2014) demands teenage activism and promotes anti-mining agenda. From 2013-2015 the Academy’s Science by Doing (SBD) site went live in mid-2013, about 9300 secondary science teachers, or 37% of Australia’s 25,000 science teachers, signed on for the free course, along with 50,000 students.
https://joannenova.com.au/2015/12/australian-academy-of-science-trains-school-children-to-be-lobbyists-and-teachers-dont-mind/
Schools and teachers nationally and by State promote Bruce Pascoe’s debunked thesis of pre-contact Aboriginal settled agriculturalists
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2020/07/bruce-pascoes-tribe-dines-on-young-minds/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2020/08/from-angry-penguins-to-an-unquestioned-emu/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2020/08/another-load-of-emu-droppings/
Reconciliation Australia introduces racial politics to pre-schools and kindergartens
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/01/never-too-young-for-a-brainwashing/
Recommendation: That the Commonwealth government initiate a Parliamentary Inquiry into the teaching of science in the schools.