Happy Teacher Appreciation Week and many thanks to all of you for doing the great work that you do! We loved this observation describing the Spring posted to the online classroom today from Nikolaus at Great River School.

He titled it, There Is Life Among Us.

Exciting news!  The Minnesota's Changing Climate Project- which includes all of the great work you have been doing, has beennominated for a Minnesota Environmental Initiative Award.  Winners will announced at an event on May 24.  More info.

We have confirmed that Eugenie Scott,the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education(NCSE), will be speaking on Climate Science in Schools: the Next Evolution, at our free public forum held the evening of August 6th at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Cowles Auditorium, with Will Steger. Moderated by Steve Kelley. 

For the past 30 years NCSE has primarily focused on defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom. In 2012, in response to complaints from teachers that they were coming under fire for teaching global warming and other climate change concepts, NCSE decided to support the teaching of climate change in addition to evolution.  The work of NCSE is clearly important, especially after yesterday's passage of a bill in Tennessee that allows teachers to teach that the science and issue of climate change has "two sides."  More info. 

It is hard not to notice the unusually warm weather that hit Minnesota in the last few weeks, following what we like to call, "the winter that never was."  There has been some pretty
interesting coverage that highlight these anomalies.

Climate Central's interactive map shows how early spring has arrived around the country

Spring is finally upon us! It's a perfect time to get your class outside with their journals and make some observations as Minnesota "wakes up." It is maple syrup time and we wanted to share this video about how the industry is changing that we came upon a few weeks back.

The big news in the Climate Change Education world the last few weeks has been the controversy surrounding leaked Heartland Institute documents.  The documents show, among other things, their plan to develop a curriculum for teaching about climate change in K-12 schools. Dr. David Wojick, who is not a climate scientist and received his PhD in epistemology, will develop a set of modules on topics he deems to be “controversial” when in fact there is no controversy.  Curriculum modules include the role of humans causing climate change (science concludes humans are a major driver of climate change so yes, it is us!); how climate models work (science proves their models are reliable) and if CO2 is an air pollutant (which it is).  Two days ago Dr. Peter Gleick admitted to leaking the Heartland documents.  His admission has instigated a variety of responses on whether Dr. Gleick should be considered a hero or condemned for his actions.