Climate change education in U.S. middle schools: changes over five pivotal years.

Climate change education is both important and challenging. Prior research suggests that many secondary school science teachers in the United States were conveying "mixed messages" to students that legitimized scientifically unwarranted explanations of recent global warming. In this paper, we focus on US climate education at the middle school level and assess whether teacher attention to recent global warming, and whether the messages conveyed to students, changed between 2014 and 2019. Pooling data from two nationally representative probability surveys of middle school science teachers, we show significant advances on several key criteria, but the prevalence of mixed messages remained high. Exploratory analysis suggests that improvements were spurred partly by the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards by many states and by partly by shifts in the personal views of science educators.

The acceptance of evolution: A developmental view of Generation X in the United States.

The public acceptance of evolution remains a contentious issue in the United States. Numerous investigations have used national cross-sectional studies to examine the factors associated with the acceptance or rejection of evolution. This analysis uses a 33-year longitudinal study that followed the same 5000 public-school students from grade 7 through midlife (ages 45-48) and is the first to do so in regard to evolution. A set of structural equation models demonstrate the complexity and changing nature of influences over these three decades. Parents and local influences are strong during the high school years. The combination of post-secondary education and occupational and family choices demonstrate that the 15 years after high school are the switchyards of life.

Public acceptance of evolution in the United States, 1985-2020.

The public acceptance of evolution in the United States is a long-standing problem. Using data from a series of national surveys collected over the last 35 years, we find that the level of public acceptance of evolution has increased in the last decade after at least two decades in which the public was nearly evenly divided on the issue. A structural equation model indicates that increasing enrollment in baccalaureate-level programs, exposure to college-level science courses, a declining level of religious fundamentalism, and a rising level of civic scientific literacy are responsible for the increased level of public acceptance.

Dispatches from the evolution wars: shifting tactics and expanding battlefields.

Creationism continues to present a challenge to the teaching of evolution in the United States. With attempts to ban evolution education and to "balance" the teaching of evolution with creationism unavailing, creationists are increasingly favoring the approach of misrepresenting evolution as scientifically controversial. To understand the ongoing challenges facing evolution education in the United States, it is necessary to appreciate creationist actions at the different levels of educational governance--state legislatures, state boards of education, local boards of education, and finally the individual classroom--that serve as the battlegrounds for the evolution education wars. Scientists are in a unique position to defend the teaching of evolution, both by resisting creationist incursions as they occur and by helping to improve the teaching of evolution at both the precollege and college levels.