The Alaska Oil & Gas Association sent more than six thousand fliers to several elementary schools which highlighted five science experiments available on an AOGA website, brainiak.com. In an Oct. 29 Alaska Dispatch News article, AOGA described the flier and the website as factual, academic and nonpolitical. The flier and website do not meet the standard Alaska students deserve in terms of quality, transparency, academic content or scientific inquiry.
The flier was click bait for a political promotion of SB 21 and support for Alaska's state spending to the oil industry through tax credits. Regardless of how Alaskans feel about those political issues, it is inappropriate to mix political advocacy under the guise of science education. Students needed to navigate through political messaging to click on a button titled "Kids Lab" that was also next to buttons labeled "SB 21" and "Tax Credits." The experiments were one page documents that lacked explicit connections to science learning standards. There were no descriptions where items could be obtained since few Alaska students have easy accessibility to purchase materials such as limestone, shale and sandstone. There were no pictures or videos demonstrating the experiments for students having difficulties but there was a video on the website giving political support for SB 21. There is little to celebrate under either SB 21 or Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share when the price of oil collapses to less than half of its previous value. The promotion of SB 21 is odd since that election is over.
The website includes an oil and gas IQ test which seems to gloss over the importance of learning from mistakes and mishaps. One question notes that even oil spills of one drop must be reported. I worked on the Graying offshore platform in Cook Inlet before and after the 1985 blowout. Reporting spills and gathering contextual information is necessary to learn from past mistakes, detect future problems and to assure workers' families that we are doing everything possible to keep their loved ones safe. The 13,500-gallon North Slope oil spill in 2009 was caused by high pressure in frozen lines. The more than 212,000-gallon oil spill of 2006 was caused by corrosion and ineffective monitoring. The lessons from those spills and numerous smaller ones must be more substantive than one-drop trivia questions. Instead of the AOGA IQ test, students would learn much more by exploring the Alaska Prevention and Emergency Response Spill Database to examine the frequency of spills and their causes.
While legislators are discussing the possibility of closing small rural village schools, AOGA used science education as a Trojan horse to share a political message with elementary students and their families. Missing from the oil and gas IQ quiz was any evidence of Alaska's return on investment for those oil subsidies. Why should spending hundreds of millions of dollars for oil tax credits come before the constitutionally required needs of village kids to even have a school? Are we going to deny students in Little Diomede a school before we question whether mature declining legacy oil fields need to be subsidized? How we answer these moral questions defines who we are in terms of our values and principles. Alaska's future depends on providing a high quality public education for all Alaska students.
As a practicing classroom teacher, I encourage and support endeavors that build trusting relationships between educators, students, their families and their community. Those relationships should include quality interactions with parents and community members from business, private enterprise and industry that bring a unique knowledge and perspective. Future educational outreach efforts by AOGA would benefit from partnering with educators in the development and implementation of the learning activity. Support materials on a website must be clearly partitioned and separate from any political activity or advocacy. Alaska students deserve nothing less.
Bob Williams is an educator in the Mat-Su School District and a former Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com.