Oil’s pipeline to America’s schoolsby Jie Jenny Zou. June 1. 5, 2. 01. State Rep. Tom Gann and State Sen. Marty Quinn read aloud to first graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Pryor, Oklahoma. Oklahoma Energy Resources Board. Jennifer Merritt’s first- graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Pryor, Oklahoma, were in for a treat. Sitting cross- legged on the floor, the students gathered in late November for story time with two special guests, state Rep.

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Tom Gann and state Sen. Marty Quinn. Dressed in suits, the Republican lawmakers read aloud from “Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream,” a parable in which a Bob the Builder lookalike awakens to find his toothbrush, hardhat and even the tires on his bike missing. Abandoned by the school bus, Pete walks to Petroville Elementary in his pajamas.“Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream” was published in 2.

Oklahoma Energy Resources Board“It sounds like you are missing all of your petroleum by- products today!” his teacher, Mrs. Rigwell, exclaims, extolling oil’s benefits to Pete and fellow students like Sammy Shale. Before long, Pete decides that “having no petroleum is like a nightmare!”The tale is the latest in an illustrated series by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, a state agency funded by oil and gas producers. The board has spent upwards of $4.

K- 1. 2 education with a pro- industry bent, including hundreds of pages of curricula, a speaker series and an afterschool program — all at no cost to educators. A similar program in Ohio shows teachers how to “frack” Twinkies using straws to pump for cream and advises on the curriculum for a charter school that revolves around shale drilling. A national program whose sponsors include BP and Shell claims it’s too soon to tell if the earth is heating up, but “a little warming might be a good thing.”Decades of documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity reveal a tightly woven network of organizations that works in concert with the oil and gas industry to paint a rosy picture of fossil fuels in America’s classrooms. Led by advertising and public- relations strategists, the groups have long plied the tools of their trade on impressionable children and teachers desperate for resources. Proponents of programs like the one in Oklahoma say they help the oil and gas industry replenish its aging workforce by stirring early interest in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. But some experts question the educational value and ethics of lessons touting an industry that plays a central role in climate change and air pollution. Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, likened industry- sponsored curricula that ignore climate science to advertising. You’re exploiting that trusted relationship between the student and the teacher,” he said. Leiserowitz — whose research has focused on how culture, politics and psychology impact public perception of the environment — said fossil- fuel companies have a stake in perpetuating a message of oil dependency. In “Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream,” the main character finds out life without petroleum is a “nightmare.” Pictured on the right is fellow classmate, Sammy Shale.

Oklahoma Energy Resources Board. As early as the 1. K- 1. 2 schools as a key element of its fledgling marketing strategy. By the 1. 96. 0s, the American Petroleum Institute was looking to shake its reputation as a “monopoly which reaped excessive profits” and set out to cultivate a network of “thought leaders” that included educators, journalists, politicians and even clergy, according to an organizational history copyrighted by API in 1. The idea caught on.

Hundreds of oil- and- gas- centric lesson plans are now available at the click of a mouse. Watch Following Mediafire. The programs occupy a gray area between corporate sponsorship and promotion  at a time when climate science has increasingly come under siege at the highest levels of government. Watch Ace The Case Online Hulu. On June 1, President Donald Trump, flanked by U. S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator – and former Oklahoma attorney general – Scott Pruitt, announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.“Teachers are taking their cues from the political situation around them,” said Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit that advocates for climate- change and evolution education.

He pointed to a survey that found teachers in Republican counties and states are less likely to teach the scientific consensus on global warming — regardless of the educator’s politics. Teachers live in local communities, they’re sensitive to the needs and desires of the people paying their paychecks.”Branch’s group supports wide- scale adoption of Next Generation Science Standards, a joint effort by states and educational organizations to revamp K- 1.

Oklahoma is among a dozen states that have opted for watered- down versions, sometimes omitting provisions on evolution and the anthropogenic causes of global warming. Along with Colorado, Kansas and Montana, Oklahoma legislators have also championed bills requiring that educators teach “both sides” of those scientific concepts. A 2. 01. 6 study confirmed that America’s youth receive mixed messages on climate change. Nearly a third of middle- and high- school science teachers nationwide have wrongly suggested global warming is naturally occurring. A quarter have spent as much time rebutting evidence of warming as they have presenting it. Teachers gathered at Choctaw High School for a workshop in April by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board.

Joe Wertz of State. Impact Oklahoma. Freddie Fuelless and Oliver Oilpatch.

Schools and libraries across Oklahoma have received more than 9,0. Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream” since it was published last year. The story has been a hit with Jennifer Merritt’s students, who won the storytelling visit from lawmakers after submitting a photo to the energy resources board via Facebook. Posing on a jungle gym, the students clutched stuffed animals and footballs — their “favorite petroleum by- products.”“It’s not some boring thing,” Merritt said of the board’s “Little Bits” curriculum for kindergarten through second grade, which features alliterative characters like Freddie Fuelless and Oliver Oilpatch.

Without it, she said, “I probably wouldn’t have taught first graders about energy.”Merritt is among 1. Oklahoma teachers who have attended workshops on how to use what the board calls its “innovative, one- of- a- kind science and energy curriculum in their classrooms.” Participants are reimbursed for supplies year- round and can register their classes for free museum field trips — so long as the exhibits highlight petroleum. On a recent Saturday, a workshop was in session at Choctaw High School, east of Oklahoma City. The parking lot was bustling as teachers loaded their cars with heavy tubs, each stuffed with up to $1,2. In classrooms, some teachers plotted oil- production trends while others watched bubbling brews simulating how the industry wrings oil from depleting fields. In an email, board Chairman Danny Morgan wrote that the organization doesn’t use public funds and “does not function like a typical agency.” Under state law, half of its revenues from oil and gas producers are spent restoring abandoned oil wells.

Morgan pointed to a board safety campaign aimed at preventing children from playing on dangerous pumpjacks that dot the state, writing, “if just one child is kept safe through the awareness this program created, it is well worth the effort.”During the workshop, Oklahoma educators learned about oil production and other aspects of the petroleum industry. Joe Wertz of State. Impact Oklahoma. While the board’s curriculum enlightens students about the benefits of “black gold,” their teachers are  hard- pressed to find any information on climate change or other drawbacks of fossil fuels — even as Oklahoma struggles to curb a slew of man- made earthquakes tied to its fracking boom.