Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised
You only have to look at the level of performance in schools w.r.t. what's being taught. I know teachers who are supposedly science teachers who can't teach the subject!!!
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Carl, this simply is not true. Perhaps you know a few teachers who are inept but to tar and feather the whole profession is a little premature to say the least. All of the Science teachers I know at least have a Bsc in a specialist area. All the folks in my department have at least Hons level in their specialist area, 2 have Phd's and one has a masters degree. To quote tabloids printing figures about student achievement is also a little silly as they twist figures to suit their own purpose. What you might like to consider is the number of teachers who are forced to teach outside their specialist area's due to a lack of suitably qualified graduates taking up the challange of educating our youth. An extreme lack of geology specialists comes to mind.....
To get back to the topic at hand as a professional body science teachers have our own associations and journals. It is from the last journal I would like to quote some statements made on climate change by climate scientists (rather than most of the speculation that goes on around here
) . This should cause a rukus no doubt.
The artical is titled " Secondary Students, Misconceptions about Climate Change"
" It is not widely understood that we are living in a relatively mild stage of an iceage"
"Proxy data for temperature over geological time have been provided with clear indications that the planet has experienced temperatures of 12 degrees C above todays level for most of the last 500 million years"
" Carbon dioxide levels are the lowest they have been in 500 million years"
"Carbon dioxide makes up a mere 0.038% of the Earths atmosphere and is a minor greenhouse gas."
" Carbon dioxide has never been a driver of global temperature over 500 million years"
"When the carbon dioxide levels were 10 times higher than today the Earth was in the depths of an iceage"
"Glaciers are not in retreat around the globe and the Antartic sheet is accumulating at around 2cm per year"
"Artic ice shows no sign of any "dramatic melting" so often potrayed in the media. Satellite telemetry records a seasonal melting and refreezing with no nett loss of ice since 2002"
"The Artic ocean has been iced over several times in the last 1000 years and will continue to flucuate"
" There is firm evidence for global cooling from 2 satellite data sets (University of Alabama and Remote Sensing Systems) as well as the Hadley Centre for Climate Studies. These data correspond with those from radiosondes which show that warming stopped in the 1970's with ongoing cooling since 2002, despite the levels of rising carbon dioxide"
" A desisive number of scientists now reject the notion of anthropogenic global warming and paleoclimatologist Professor Bob Carter explains why so many people still retain misconceptions about climate change. " Most of the public statements that promote the the dangerous human warming are made from a position of ignorance - by political leaders, press commentators and celebrities who share the characteristics of a lack of scientific training and a lack of ability to differentiate between sound science and computer based scare mongering"
I could go on
. This is what we teachers are being told by "real practising climate scientists" to be the case. What do you think, who should we trust for our source of truth and fact?
Mark