Watch a Climate Scientist Fact Check an Alarming PragerU Video

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If the culture war has a ground zero, it may be Florida schools. Under Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration, the state has banned discussions about sexuality or gender identity in classrooms up to third grade; prohibited “critical race theory” (a concept that educators say was never taught in grades K-12); made it easier for parents to ban books with racial or LGBTQ+ themes; and, most recently, approved public school guidelines that imply slavery benefited some Black people.

In DeSantis’ own words, “Florida is the place where woke goes to die.”

It’s also, apparently, where science goes to die. Last month, Florida became the first state in the nation to approve the use of “educational” videos produced by the conservative organization Prager University Foundation, a group co-founded by right-wing radio host Dennis Prager. While no school district has announced plans to show any of PragerU’s videos, NPR reports, there’s nothing to stop teachers from independently airing the material. As a Florida Department of Education spokesperson said in a statement, the material aligns with Florida’s revised civics and government standards.

One of those videos, a 9-minute animation titled, Poland: Ania’s Energy Crisis, includes what experts say are several climate-denial talking points. In it, the central character, Ania, questions the climate science she’s taught in school and grows concerned about rising energy costs due to a ban on coal in her home country of Poland. She wonders whether renewables can provide the country with enough energy, and loses friends over her beliefs. But she’s comforted by her family’s “stories of perseverance,” like, in her grandfather’s case, fighting Nazis during the Warsaw Uprising. “Ania is realizing that fighting oppression is risky and that it always takes courage,” the video’s narrator says—seeming to make an indirect comparison between Nazis and climate activists.

But according to Kristina Dahl, the principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, PragerU’s video does a “disservice” to kids because it’s not honest about the facts. “I find something like this, that seems to be deliberately misleading kids about how we’re going to solve climate change, to be really dangerous,” she tells me.

To better contextualize PragerU’s climate video, we asked Dahl, who is also a mother of two kids in public schools, to review and respond to Ania’s Energy Crisis.

#Science #PragerU #Reaction #FactCheck

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