This story originally appeared in Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
This fall, 54 million K-12 students will return to classrooms to study traditional subjects such as math, English, history, and biology. But one less obvious topic is also woven into school curricula across the United States: plastic.
A new report from the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition documents how the plastics industry has introduced its messages into classrooms nationwide. These efforts include lesson plans and worksheets, hands-on science experiments, and a traveling program called PlastiVan. Industry groups also promote the contributions plastics make to modern life.
According to the report, plastics companies and industry organizations provide these educational resources to teachers for free or at a reduced cost. Although the materials emphasize the usefulness and affordability of plastic, they often minimize the material’s significant risks to human health and the environment.
“When such information is provided to children, it obscures the true impact of plastic pollution,” said Madison Dennis, senior policy and advocacy manager at the Plastic Pollution Coalition and one of the report’s lead authors. Plastic pollution can harm marine life, expose people to hazardous chemicals, clog storm drains, contribute to flooding, and release greenhouse gases that drive global warming. The Plastic Pollution Coalition is calling for stronger school policies limiting the use of industry-sponsored educational materials.
The report identifies four examples of what it describes as plastic industry “propaganda” directed at schoolchildren. One example involves the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), an industry organization that recently became a division of the Plastics Industry Association. SPE offers a lesson plan featuring activities such as a “Plastic Scavenger Hunt.” The activity encourages students to “understand the ubiquity of plastics and their importance to society and our personal lives.” Another video, titled “Your Bottle Means Jobs,” explains how plastic recycling supports local employment.
A second example involves the American Association of Chemistry Teachers, an initiative of Dow Chemical Company. One of its lesson plans asks elementary and middle school students to compare the strength of different types of plastic grocery bags. Following the experiment, students are invited to role-play as Dow Chemical Company employees who design plastic bags for customers.
Although many of these materials claim to support STEM education, they often emphasize the affordability and safety of plastic while presenting industry-friendly perspectives. The lessons may acknowledge plastic pollution as a serious problem, but instead of focusing on reducing plastic production and consumption, they frequently promote recycling as the primary solution.
Worldwide, only about 9 percent of plastic is recycled, and scientists have repeatedly warned that recycling cannot keep pace with the projected growth in plastic production. An investigation and report found that industry groups knew about the limitations of recycling for decades but continued promoting it to ease growing concerns about plastic pollution.
Wendy Johnson, a science education expert at the National Center for Science Education, said industry-created lesson plans and worksheets often fail to meet strong teaching standards. Although some materials claim to align with state STEM requirements, they do not clearly identify which standards they support or explain how they meet them. One lesson plan, for example, asks students to read teacher notes and memorize industry-specific terms such as “stretch blow molding” and “heat curing.”
“By using all this jargon, they’re fooling people into thinking they’re doing science,” Johnson told Grist. Instead, she said, the materials teach “ideological perspectives on economics,” including the supposed value of inexpensive consumer products.
Source: www.wired.com