First of all, you need to decide your standard of value.Is human life the most important? Humans getting healthier, wealthier, happier, living longer? Or is pristine nature more important? Do we want to quit building new houses? Stop getting stuff out of the ground? Do we want to leave it exactly as it is? Because that would be difficult.Thankfully, we don’t have to choose in this country.We’re working on a happy medium at this point. The students didn’t ask any questions, and she moved on.While there are challenges with fossil fuels and we have to solve those problems, they have provided us with the ability to make lives better all over the world, she said.For a portion of her career, Miller gave presentations mainly to adults.When fracking started in Arkansas, people had a lot of questions about its implications, so she would visit Rotary Clubs and city councils to provide the industry’s answers.But these days, she gives her presentation to any classroom that will have her.Mostly, she says, she speaks at middle schools.Frequently she gets third or fifth graders.It’s a lot of time on the road, but it’s worth it, she said.We decided, you know, if we really want to change the way people look at energy sources and understand what we use and why we use it, we need to go out and work with teachers and talk to students.The phenomenon of fossil fuel companies plying schoolchildren with their messages is decades old.The American Petroleum Institute was making the case for marketing to children as early as the 1940s, according to archives reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.In one, Mickey Mouse and Goofy Explore Energy, the pair get in trouble when their car runs out of gas on a fishing trip.When a war cuts off trade, Big Daddy responds by threatening to impose price controls or even to take over the wood industry, which viewers learn could prove calamitous.Amoco claimed that more than 20 million schoolchildren watched it.Today, fossil fuel–funded educational programs aimed at children are abundant.Not all have Paige Millers traveling classroom to classroom.More common are free curricula, sponsored activities, and scholarships.Others are transparent marketing efforts.Your Invisible Friend, filled with puzzles and games.Industry education programs in Kansas, Ohio, Illinois, and Oklahoma are actually supported and sanctioned by those states’ governments.The most sophisticated is the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, a privatized state agency voluntarily funded by oil and gas companies.The lower level is dedicated to what one might find underground to discover oil.In one, Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream, the titular character drifts off to sleep wondering what the world might be like without petroleum products.He awakes to find his school clothes, toothbrush, and bike tires missing.He blames his dog and heads to school in his pajamas.Having no petroleum is like a nightmare! Petro Pete declares, before waking up and realizing it was all just a dream.One morning, bulldozers interrupt their peaceful burrow.But Petro Pete’s dog RePete explains that they are there to clean up old oil equipment.Do you mean to tell us these humans are cleaning up old oilfield messes just because they want to? asks a rabbit.The humans are taking responsibility for their industry and cleaning up abandoned well sites in Petroville and all across Oklahoma, RePete assures him.A few weeks later, the animals celebrate their newly clean neighborhood.Let’s hear three cheers for RePete and the humans! cries the rabbit.But taxpayer money has also been used to promote industry interests.The project was the brainchild of State Rep.It should have been none of the above, in my opinion, he told the Statesman.It’s such a biased question.It’s making their minds up for them.You’re striking fear in children that oil and gas and coal are bad.The foundation applied for and was awarded $165,000 in federal grants, administered by the state of Texas, to develop new classroom materials.That site is now defunct, but much of it is still available on Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.‘Global Warming’ is something that has been happening for a long time.Don’t panic when you hear global alarmists warning the Earth may have warmed almost 1 degree in the last 200 years.Although this still hasn’t yet been proven, it is in fact exactly what should be happening if everything is normal.If Global Warming stops, then you can start worrying!The relationship between these two variables demonstrates that correlation does not imply causation.In more recent materials, when climate change is discussed, it tends to be ignored or mentioned in passing.Essential Principles for Energy Education, mentions the subject to say that issues like climate change highlight the need for energy education. But after using the issue to contextualize its own relevance, the curriculum does not define or discuss it.The Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute’s educational materials talk about clean coal but have nary a mention of climate change.Likewise, Anchorage’s Campbell Creek Science Center’s site features dozens of educational resources, but I couldn’t find any discussing climate change.Anchorage’s average winters are eight degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they were seventy years ago.A portion of group’s funding comes in the form of state and federal grants.The organization hosts teacher trainings, runs student workshops, and maintains a large catalog of classroom materials.Most scientists believe the Earth is already experiencing a warming trend due to the greenhouse effect, it states, as though the warming trend hasn’t been verified by millions of thermometers around the world.A lesson for primary and elementary students called Energy Stories and More, published in 2014 and available on the site until 2017, said that some scientists think it’s too soon to tell if the Earth is really warming.They think a little warming might be a good thing for the Earth.She said they’ve had to handle the subject delicately out of respect to educators worried about teaching the controversial subject.And even in that project, we were told that some districts are still saying ‘nope’ to teaching curriculum like this.Others are saying, ‘Yes, give it to me, let’s do it.’ So I think that’s why you’ll often find qualifiers. I pointed out that scientists would push back on the idea that one should water down science education to accommodate the politics of some adults.I think it’s a fair point you’re making, she said, and added she would ask her staff to review the materials’ language.Many industries get involved in education, she said.We don’t sit in meetings and create marketing materials, she said.When we’re able to find a sponsor willing to sponsor something, we are grateful.It’s probably very easy for you to assume we have a bias and engage in irresponsible efforts, simply because of a sponsor you noted on our sponsors list.All those statements are true and have been for a long time.Peanut’s Guide to Nutrition.More than forty years later, attend any teaching convention and you’ll find yourself wandering massive halls filled with booths.From many of them, private companies distribute free educational materials.An organization of educators called the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, cofounded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Frank Niepold and largely funded by grants from that agency, surveyed some 30,000 lesson plans and resources about climate change available for free online.The rest were outdated or scientifically unsound.Teachers can be excused for not always discerning the good from the bad, said researcher Eric Plutzer.In the class Paige Miller spoke to, the teacher was deferential to the guest and expressed no critique or counterpoints to what she was saying.Not surprisingly, the students didn’t either.To be sure, Miller’s presentation included accurate information about the science of fossil fuel extraction, but it ignored the science of that extraction’s impact on the world.It downplayed the outsized contribution Americans make to atmospheric carbon levels.It talked about the high salaries of offshore drillers but not of the average Tesla employee.What’s more, this presentation took place in Helen Tyson Middle School in Springdale, Arkansas, home to the largest enclave of Marshallese people on the continent.As the class wrapped up, I asked the teacher to point out the Marshallese children in her class.She pointed out five, a quarter of the students present.Data shows only a marginal increase in sea ice between the 1940s and 1970s and the ice gained in that period has been dwarfed by the amount lost since then.There is no evidence supporting the notion that the sun, rather than the growing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, has caused the recent extraordinary loss of ice in the Arctic.Which is to say, the crayon posters were considerably more accurate than the PowerPoint.Roughly once a year since 2008, the organization has hosted an International Conference on Climate Change, bringing together all the loudest voices in the climate denial movement.The voices do not sing in unison.Some question whether global temperatures are really rising, accusing scientists and environmentalists of misinterpreting, exaggerating, or corrupting the data.Others grant that warming is happening, but say it’s natural.I don’t think that was the result of anything we did, Bast demurred.Science teachers are smart.But despite those trappings, they would not have survived peer review themselves.Under peer review, a scientific work is scrutinized by a group of scholars from a relevant field.Assumptions that cannot be tested.