Global warming discussions in schools
Saturday, March 17, 2007
By Sky Barsch
Free Press Staff Writer

Some parents question how global warming is taught in schools.

In Montpelier earlier this year, Bill Burrell’s sixth-grade students testified before legislative committees about global warming and what Vermont can do about it. The students also are immersed in conservation and alternative energy projects.

In South Burlington recently, a middle school math teacher used a portion of Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to illustrate linear equations. An English teacher used the movie to spark opinion writing. Another documentary, “Too Hot Not To Handle,” was shown in a science class during a climate and weather unit to help illustrate the effect that human beings have on the environment, according to Frederick Tuttle Middle School Principal Joe O’Brien.

In Jericho this week, Jericho Elementary School students put on a play about global warming.

As global warming has shifted from the subject of scientific trade journals and alternative media to the center of the public and political arenas, it also has become a hot topic in public schools. That has some parents questioning what their children are hearing. Parents who disagree with the global warming theory, or who chalk it up to environmental alarmists or political hyperbole, are finding that their points of view aren’t given the attention afforded the “other side.” the rest