Discussion for article #243203
Major California textbooks still in ancient printed book form, rather than easily corrected digital editions.
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And this is where Jesus swam to rescue The Little Mermaid from the clutches of the Godless Atheist Muslim sea captain.
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Pearson again!
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Books published âalmost 10 years agoâ relied on the science of and the cultural appreciation of climate change from somewhat more than âalmost 10 years agoâ. This is kind of a backassed way to say that the textbooks are too old.
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Textbooks need to go all digital so states can escape the clutches of the Texas keep-'em-stupid juggernaut.
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If you go to Prentice Hallâs âFocus on Earth Scienceâ you find the lesson plan below. The site dates the contents to 2008. (California Science Explorer ©2008). Lesson plan Chapter 9, Climate and Climate Change also provides a direct link to the EPA report extolling the dangers of climate change and the degree of manâs responsibilities for it. I donât see as Pearson is exactly hiding the science from students. Maybe California is at fault for not providing more current textbooks with what I see below.
http://www.phschool.com/atschool/california/science_explorer/program_page.html
UNIT 3: WEATHER AND CLIMATE
Chapter 7: The Atmosphere
Chapter 8: Weather
Chapter 9: Climate and Climate Change
Online Vocabulary Builder and Crossword Puzzle
SciLinks: Ocean Currents
Activity: The Seasons
SciLinks: Climates of the World
Planet Diary Activity: The Greenhouse Effect
Self-Test
Chapter Nine:
Cars, factories, and power plants spew huge amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These gases get much of the blame for global warming. But you contribute your share of greenhouse gases every day too. Youâll find out more in this Planet Diary activity.
Go to the EPAâs studentâs guide to Global Climate Change. Watch the introductory video. What happens in the greenhouse effect?
How does all the âextraâ carbon dioxide get into the atmosphere?
Click See the Impact. What are some of the signs of global climate change?
What can we expect to happen if the planet keeps getting warmer?
How can we put less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?
List three things YOU can do to help lower greenhouse gases by reducing your energy use.
Use this climate change calculator to find out how much carbon dioxide you can keep out of the atmosphere.
Go on a Climate Change Expedition to see the effects of climate change around the world. Write your own Planet Diary blog about one place you visited.
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Thatâs an inaccurate caption. Sheâs pointing to an area unknown in Jesusâ day. The Godless Atheist was further to the right, near the pyramids he used to store his grains in when the ancient Libtards were brainwashing their children to be gay.
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Ted Cruz approves.
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Ex-employee of Pearson here (my division, which had nothing to do with textbooks nor testing, and everything to do with the administrative work districts go through, was spun off from the sinking ship mid-year). Full disclosure and all that.
While it is easier in some respects to correct digital textbooks, it isnât exactly âeasyâ. Corrections need to go through a board review, they need to be authored and edited and vetted (the last has had some glaring failures of course), and as a result they need to be paid for. With the sales model where these books had been bought, there was no way for updates to be paid for, and frankly Pearson is just too big to care that the impression people get when looking at a book with the Pearson brand on it is often âthatâs inaccurateâ, so isnât going to absorb that cost just out of civic-minded duty.
The sales model needs to change from a âsaleâ to a âsubscriptionâ model for several (but not all!) textbook categories, and at the same time there needs to be enough competition (meaning, low cost of entry and reduced consolidation) that the balance of power here shifts back to the schools and standards boards so that âsubscriptionâ means frequent updates rather than paying for the same content year after year in perpetuity.
That said, the move to digital is a positive one. Just donât expect your digital textbooks to be up-to-the-minute or even up-to-the-year.
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Iâm sorry, but your list of âneedsâ is nothing but a for-profit groupâs list of âhow we make moneyâ. Not the same thing at all.
Correcting falsehoods should be easy and free. Ask Wikipedia.
âWe always are committed to presenting balanced, unbiased, and accurate materialâ
You canât âbalanceâ science. And if you present an opposing opinion thatâs bull shit thatâs not balancingâŠthatâs biasing.
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Ah, yes, âFair and accurateâ. Is that as truthful as âFair and Balancedâ (the motto of Fox News)?
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To be fair:
- There were four textbooks studied, only one of which was from Pearson
- Pearson is a major semi-focused educational conglomerate; anything happening in the education sector for good or ill will have Pearson involved
- The Pearson book is from 2008, over seven years ago (the other three were from 2007, even older). While scientific consensus really hasnât changed much over the past seven years, public understanding of it certainly has. A strong climate change position in a textbook in 2008 would have kept it out of California - we have a strong and strident retrograde minority in state politics and the Department of Education, and remember that conservatism was seriously on the rise in 2006-2008 when this book would have been written, edited, and approved, and thus likely would have kept it from reaching publication at all.
[Re-disclosure: former Pearson employee]
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Happy Thanksgiving to all the fine folks who come here to mock conservativesâand to the staff at TPM, too!!
Just remember what Mencken saidâIn this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for; me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
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Though what can be easily undumbed can just as easily be ignorantified.
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⊠And if the school board adopts Wikipedia as their textbook source, then those updates will come free! Canât imagine anything backfiring with that plan!
IMHO, Iâd like textbooks to be kept more current, but not protean and subject to political wind shifts. There are a number of up-to-the-minute sources on every subject imaginable, and a good teacher will incorporate those into their lesson plan. That said, the text books should be rid of egregiously outdated information like this more frequently than once per decade.
The textbooks may be incorrect and out of date, but hopefully, the kids are paying attention to the world around them.
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âOne of the booksâŠdescribed climate change this wayâŠ'Not all scientists agree about the causes of global warming. Some scientists think that the 0.7 Celsius degree rise in global temperatures over the past 120 years may be due in part to natural variations in climate.âŠâWhile uncertainty is inherent in science, in this case, the text is not scientifically accurateâ, Busch said in the statement.â
In what way is the text ânot scientifically accurateâ? Presumably K. C. Busch (âone of the paperâs co-authors and doctorate candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Educationâ) is not peeved about the possible 0.1 Celsius degree of disparity between this figure and others. Is it possible that our elite Education grad believes that all âscientists agree about the causes of global warmingâ? And that none of them even consider the possibility that it âmay be due [even] in part to natural variations in climateâ? Iâd really like to hear her scientific explanation of the âinaccuracyâ 
By middle school, children are pretty fluent with the internet and some, at least, can find their way around the library. They can smell BS a mile away (and will call it). My problem is more with the depressing case we build for our kids that they and their descendants are fucked. A rise in the average global temperature and change in atmospheric chemistry means soils retain less moisture (something like 7% for every one degree C increase), thermohaline circulation falters and the biosphere collapses. Here are their adults, acting blissfully unaware, or clinging to 13th century theology, or just trying to crank our another buck before everything goes south, as a slow-moving catastrophe overwhelms the 7.3 billion people on the planet. Here, kids, forget about your hot, dying planet for a moment by watching Avatar, cat videos, or just spending a few hours of diddly-diddly displacement behavior on your phone. And if that doesnât work, thereâs always selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
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