This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced with permission.
This fall, 54 million K-12 students return to class for a new year of lessons in all the classic subjects: mathematics, English, history, biology. But there is another topic that has infiltrated school curricula: plastics.
A new report of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a nonprofit organization, documents the many ways the plastics industry has brought its curriculum into classrooms across the United States – including through lesson plans and worksheets, hands-on science experiments, and a program called “PlastiVan” that travels from city to city teaching students “the contribution of plastics to modern life.”
Industry interests offer these resources to teachers for free or at low cost, according to the report. The materials tend to emphasize the necessity of plastics while downplaying their significant drawbacks to human health and the environment.
“When this information is provided to children, it masks the true impacts of plastic pollution,” said Madison Dennis, senior policy and advocacy manager for the Plastic Pollution Coalition and one of the lead authors of the report. In addition to harming marine life, plastics can exposing people to dangerous chemicalsblock storm drains and contribute to floodingAnd release greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Dennis’ organization calls for stricter school policies against the use of industry-sponsored learning materials.
The report presents four case studies of plastics industry “propaganda” to schoolchildren. One involves the Society of Plastic Engineersor SPE, a trade group that recently became a division of the Plastics Industry Association. EPS lesson plans include activities like a “plastic scavenger hunt,” which aims for students to “understand that plastics are omnipresent and their importance to society and their personal lives.” A video titled “Your Bottle Means Jobs” explains how plastic recycling supports local employment.
Another case study highlights the American Association of Chemistry Teachersan initiative of the Dow Chemical Company. One of the association’s lesson plans teaches elementary and middle school students how to compare the strength of different types of plastic bags that might be found in a grocery store. After a brief experiment, the lesson invites them to “pretend they are employees of the Dow Chemical Company” and design a plastic bag for a customer.
Although many materials claim to support STEM learning objectives, they do so while promoting familiar industry talking points, emphasizing the affordability and safety of plastics. Some recognize plastic pollution as a serious problem, but they blame irresponsible consumer behavior and, instead of recommending less plastic production, propose more recycling as the main way to address it.
In reality, only 9 percent of all plastics are recycled worldwide, and scientists have repeatedly warned that recycling will fail to keep up with the projected growth in plastic production. Investigation report showed that industry groups have known this for decades, but still encouraged recycling to defuse growing concerns about plastic pollution.
Wendy Johnson, science education specialist at National Center for Science Educationsaid industry lesson plans and worksheets do not reflect good pedagogy. Documents claiming to be aligned with state-level STEM standards do not specify which standards they support or how they are aligned. Lesson plans ask students to read teachers’ notes or list industry-specific vocabulary terms such as “stretch-blow mold” or “thermoset.”
“By using all these technical terms, we’re making people think…that they’re doing science,” Johnson told Grist. What these documents really teach, she says, are “ideological perspectives on economics,” such as the appeal of cheap consumer goods.
“It’s so clear that the goal is not to create documents that are really clear and easy to use,” Johnson added. “The idea is not to teach,” but to bring industry talking points into classrooms. The report documents the propaganda about plastic that has been making its way into schools since at least the 2000s. Between 2009 and 2011, for example, a plastic trade group lobbied the California Department of Education to add a section on “The Benefits of Shopping Bags” to the state’s high school textbooks. The PlastiVan initiative has been running since 2011 and SPE says it has been done for over 132,000 students in all.
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Plastic Pollution Coalition suggests the problem is particularly significant in schools located near petrochemical facilities. In Beaver County, Pennsylvania, for example, Shell operates a 386-acre plastics production complex and has invested millions of dollars in developing plastics-related education and recycling programs for both elementary school and community college students. He also donated hundreds of backpacks filled with school supplies and bought a basketball court from a school – apparently in exchange for integrate plastic recycling into the school curriculum.
Shell did not respond to Grist’s request for comment. Not SPE, not the American Association of Chemistry Teachers, not the Beaver County School District.
The report hints at a broader problem with STEM education in U.S. public schools. Teachers often lack the time and money to design their own curricula or to purchase high-quality materials and lesson plans needed for classroom labs or science projects. When special interests come forward to offer support — whether it is the tobacco industryTHE junk food industryTHE pesticide industryor the fossil fuel industry – it can be hard to say no.
“As a teacher, I’m always looking for free content,” said Suzie Hicksa K-8 environmental educator in California who consulted on the Plastic Pollution Coalition report. Hicks said their education and backgrounds make them comfortable checking out greenwashing material — but that’s probably not the case for most teachers.
Dennis recommended that school boards adopt policies banning educational materials sponsored by the chemical, fossil fuel and plastic industries. She also highlighted the need for better funding for schools more generally, so that teachers and districts aren’t so desperate for ready-made learning materials.
One way to do this would be to eliminate tax breaks for petrochemical processing and plastics production facilities, which depriving communities of much-needed money.
Katie Allen, executive director of Algolitea California-based nonprofit that develops educational materials about plastic pollution, has opposed the idea that schools should ban all industry-sponsored content.
“Once you start banning something, where does it stop? What I want to do is give educators the benefit of the doubt and allow them to make their own decisions,” she told Grist. She argued that teachers should be trusted to properly contextualize industry materials – and could even use them to teach critical thinking skills.
That said, there are many educational materials on plastics developed by non-industrial sources. Algalita, for example, offers free lesson plans on topics like ocean plastic waste deposition and biomagnification – the phenomenon where plastics accumulate inside sea creatures as you move up the food chain. The Story of Stuff, another nonprofit organization, offers high school program focused on the costs and consequences of producing consumer goods, including those made from plastic.
These learning materials always come from organizations with an agenda. But Hicks argued that they are more trustworthy because nonprofits generally aren’t trying to sell something.
Another option is for teachers to simply design their own programs. This is what Jacqueline Omania, a recently retired elementary school teacher from Berkeley, California, said: made in 2015. She transformed her classroom into a zero-waste laboratory, and every year for 11 years, Omania and her students developed a set of zero-waste classroom agreements, pledging to minimize their use of plastic—exchanging individual glue sticks for a communal glue pot, for example—while advocating for more systemic change, such as campaigning for a policy requiring Berkeley restaurants to stop distributing single-use plastic food utensils.
“There are so many challenges in the world, but plastic is something tangible,” Omania said. “It’s right there in front of them, and they can see the difference they’re actually making through their actions.”
The article When Plastics Companies Write Lesson Plans appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
