DeSantis’s Florida Approves Climate-Denial Videos in Schools – Scientific American

Governor Ron DeSantis speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida (by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr).
Governor Ron DeSantis speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida (by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr).

Excerpt:
Florida’s Department of Education has approved classroom use of videos that spout climate disinformation and distort climate science

“Climate activists are like Nazis.
Wind and solar power pollute the Earth and make life miserable.
Recent global and local heat records reflect natural temperature cycles…”

These are some of the themes of children’s videos produced by an influential conservative advocacy group.

Now, the videos could soon be used in Florida’s classrooms.

Florida’s Department of Education has approved the classroom use of material from the Prager University Foundation, a conservative group that produces videos that distort science, history, gender and other topics.

Education experts call the videos dangerous propaganda.

Florida is the first state to allow PragerU materials in public schools, where teachers will have the option of showing the five- to 10-minute videos in their classrooms. Florida public schools have roughly 3 million students, more than the entire population of Kansas.

PragerU CEO Marissa Streit says the videos will rebalance schools that have been “hijacked by the left.”

“Young kids are being taught climate hysteria,” Streit said in an interview. “They’re hearing that the world is coming to an end, and we think that there needs to be a healthy balance.

“The climate is always changing,” Streit added, repeating a climate-denial motto that rejects fossil fuel burning as the cause of continuing record-high temperatures.

For now, Florida has approved using PragerU videos only in civics and government for younger children. Some PragerU climate denial videos are classified under non-climate categories, which could enable their use in Florida…

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