OKLAHOMA EVOLUTION/CLIMATE NEWS–FEBRUARY 2020

1.  Science education legislation in Oklahoma

2.  Anti-science/pro-science education legislation in other states and countries

3.  Darwin Day resolutions

4.  Antarctica breaks it highest record temperature

5.  How thin, delicate butterfly wings keep from overheating

6.  January was warmest on record for the globe

7.  New dinosaur discovered in China shows dinosaurs grew up differently from birds

8.  #WhyTeachEvolution campaign

9.  February video

SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OKLAHOMA
No anti-science education bills were heard in the Oklahoma legislature before the deadline for bills to pass out of committee on February 27.  None of the house shell bills involved anti-science education legislation.  
The Oklahoma State Board of Education approved new academic standards for science and fine arts on February 27. The academic standards must come before the Legislature and the governor before implementation next school year.  The standards include the word evolution for the first time and start climate change education in the seventh grade.  OESE Board member, Julie Angle, who helped write the new standards for biology, was quoted in an article in the Oklahoman in support of the standards.  Here is the Oklahoman article.   We will watch the process at the legislature closely.  Article also at the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.

SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OKLAHOMA
No anti-science education bills were heard in the Oklahoma legislature before the deadline for bills to pass out of committee on February 27.  None of the house shell bills involved anti-science education legislation.  
The Oklahoma State Board of Education approved new academic standards for science and fine arts on February 27. The academic standards must come before the Legislature and the governor before implementation next school year.  The standards include the word evolution for the first time and start climate change education in the seventh grade.  OESE Board member, Julie Angle, who helped write the new standards for biology, was quoted in an article in the Oklahoman in support of the standards.  Here is the Oklahoman article.   We will watch the process at the legislature closely.  Article also at the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.

ANTI-SCIENCE/PRO-SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES AND COUNTRIES
Pro-science education bills are outnumbering anti-science education bills this year.  According to NCSE, 11 pro-science education bills have been introduced in New Jersey, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York (two bills), Rhode Island, and Washington (two bills).

Rhode Island–Rhode Island’s House Resolution 7471 would, if approved, express the support of the House of Representatives for increased environmental and climate education in the state’s public schools — and the NCSE/Penn State study of climate change education is cited as evidence of the need for the increase.In particular, the resolution requests the state department of education to develop a set of key environmental and climate principles and concepts to be included across the curriculum, to ensure that teacher professional development on the Next Generation Science Standards “use climate as an exemplary anchor phenomenon,” and to provide online material to assist the development of instructional programs in climate and environmental literacy. The resolution also asks secondary public schools in the state to offer courses in climate and environmental literacy.  More at NCSE.

Arizona–Arizona’s Senate Bill 1368, introduced on January 29, 2020, by Juan Mendez (D-District 26), would, if enacted, revise the state science standards to “include instruction on climate change using the 2013 Next Generation Science Standards.”Climate change is already part of one of the “Core Ideas for Knowing Science” in Arizona’s current state science standards: “The composition of the Earth and its atmosphere and the natural and human processes occurring within them shape the Earth’s surface and its climate.” Climate change, and anthropogenic climate change in particular, is mentioned elsewhere in the standards.
Florida–A Senate panel on Monday narrowly backed a proposal to allow parents to keep their children out of class on days when subjects they may disagree with are taught — including evolution, sex education and human influence on climate.
The bill (SB 1634) — filed by Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland — cleared the Senate Education Committee on a party-line 3-2 vote. It has one more committee to go before it can be debated on the Senate floor.
Stargel told the panel her bill will ensure parents have a fundamental right to “direct the upbringing, education and care of their children.”  More at the Destin Log.
Iowa–House File 2184, introduced on January 30, 2020, and referred to the House Education Committee, would, if enacted, require the state board of education to adopt a code of ethics to prevent public school teachers in the state from engaging in what it describes as “political or ideological indoctrination.”
As Ars Technica (January 29, 2019) explained with reference to a spate of similar measures in 2019, “the bills would call for teachers not to advocate on any topics that have appeared in the platform of a state political party. … Which is problematic, given that a large number of state party platforms specifically mention evolution and climate change.”
Two of the sponsors of HF 2184, Sandy Salmon (R-District 63) and Skyler Wheeler (R-District 4), have previously introduced legislation attempting to block or rescind the adoption in Iowa of the Next Generation Science Standards, in part due to concerns about the NGSS’s inclusion of evolution and climate change.  More at NCSE.
Idaho–The Idaho Senate Education Committee unanimously voted to approve the state science standards on February 12, 2020, according to Idaho Education News (February 12, 2020). Although the House Education Committee voted earlier to repeal the standards, the Senate Education Committee’s vote means that the standards will remain in place — for now.
Speaking before the Senate Education Committee on behalf of the standards were representatives of Idaho Business for Education, the Idaho Technology Council, the Idaho Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and the Idaho School Boards Association. Quinn Perry of the ISBA warned that repealing the standards “has a very real possibility of causing disruption” in Idaho’s schools, according to the Idaho Press (February 12, 2020).  More at NCSE here and here.
New Jersey–Senate Bill 1970, introduced in the New Jersey Senate on February 25, 2020, would, if enacted, require local school districts to include information on climate change in their curricula and to adopt instructional materials that “accurately portray changes in weather and climate patterns over time, the impacts of human activity on changes in weather and climate patterns, and the effects of climate change on people and resources.”  More at NCSE.
Minnesota–Senate File 3517, introduced in the Minnesota Senate on February 24, 2020, would, if enacted, require public school districts in the state “to embed climate change education throughout all subject areas, not just in science curriculum” and allocate $1 million yearly to do so.Sponsored by Charles E. Wiger (DFL-District 43), Jim Carlson (DFL-District 51), D. Scott Dibble (DFL-District 61), Chris A. Eaton (DFL-District 40), and Steve Cwodzinski (DFL-District 48), SF 3517 is now with the E-12 Finance and Policy Committee.  More at NCSE.
Connecticut–Connecticut’s House Bill 5215 (PDF), introduced by the Joint Committee on Education on February 20, 2020, would amend the Connecticut General Statutes to require the teaching of climate change in science classes consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards (which Connecticut adopted in 2015).
The bill is similar to a string of similar proposals in the 2018 and 2019 legislative sessions, including Senate Bill 345 in 2018 and House Bill 5011 in 2019. Connecticut would become the first state to require the teaching of climate change in its public schools by law, not simply through its science standards, if HB 5215 is enacted.  More at NCSE.
Wales–Despite the advice of a group of the United Kingdom’s leading scientists and educators, the new national curriculum for Wales neither increases the amount of evolution in the curriculum nor explicitly prohibits the teaching of creationism, according to Humanists UK (January 28, 2020). Humanists UK, which organized the group of scientists and educators, previously lobbied successfully for similar revisions to the national curriculum for England. Wales Humanists Coordinator Kathy Riddick commented, “It is hugely disappointing that the Welsh Government has ignored the advice of leading, world-class scientists and gone ahead with a new curriculum that will allow for creationism and other pseudoscientific ideas to be taught as science in our schools and which fails to require the teaching of evolution until a very late stage.”  More at NCSE.

DARWIN DAY RESOLUTIONS
Connecticut–Connecticut’s governor Ned Lamont declared February 12, 2020, Charles Darwin Day in the state of Connecticut, citing the need to protect “the advancement of science and courageous free inquiry,” including “the study of the impacts of climate change.” Darwin was described as developing “the groundbreaking theory of evolution by the mechanism of natural selection” and as “a worthy symbol of scientific advancement.”  More at NCSE.
U.S. Congress–Darwin Day resolutions have been again introduced in both houses of Congress, according to a February 12, 2020, press release from the American Humanist Association. The resolutions — House Resolution 847 and Senate Resolution 495 — would, if passed, express support of designating February 12, 2020, as Darwin Day and recognition of Charles Darwin as “a worthy symbol of scientific advancement on whom to focus and around whom to build a global celebration of science and humanity intended to promote a common bond among all of the people of the Earth.”The lead sponsor of S. Res. 495, Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) commented, “I am proud to champion Charles Darwin’s important legacy and celebrate the generations of scientists he inspired.” The lead sponsor of H. Res. 847, Jim Himes (D-Connecticut), added, “There has never been a time more appropriate to recognize one of the world’s greatest scientists and thinkers.”  More at NCSE.

ANTARCTICA BREAKS IT HIGHEST RECORD TEMPERATURE
A record high temperature of 18.3C (64.9F) has been logged on the continent of Antarctica.
The reading, taken on Thursday by Argentine research base Esperanza, is 0.8C hotter than the previous peak temperature of 17.5C, in March 2015.
The temperature was recorded in the Antarctic Peninsula, on the continent’s north-west tip – one of the fastest-warming regions on earth.
It is being verified by the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
“[This] is not a figure you would normally associate with Antarctica, even in the summertime,” WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told reporters in Geneva.
Temperatures on the Antarctic continent have risen by almost 3C over the past 50 years, the organisation said, and about 87% of the glaciers along its west coast have “retreated” in that time.
The glaciers have shown an “accelerated retreat” in the past 12 years, the WMO added, due to global warming.  More at BBC, Mother Jones, and EcoWatch.

HOW THIN, DELICATE BUTTERFLY WINGS KEEP FROM OVERHEATING
Delicate butterfly wings are pretty cool — literally, thanks to special structures that protect them from overheating in the sun.  
New thermal images of butterflies show that living parts of the wing — including veins transporting insect blood, or hemolymph, and scent patches or pads that males use to release pheromones — release more heat than surrounding dead scales, keeping the living areas cooler.
Small changes in body temperature can affect a butterfly’s ability to fly, as muscles in the thorax must be warm so that the insect can flap its wings fast enough for takeoff. But because the wings are so thin, they heat up faster than the thorax and can rapidly overheat.  More at Science News.  Original paper in Nature Communications.

JANUARY WAS WARMEST ON RECORD FOR THE GLOBE
We’re off to a hot start in 2020, with January setting a new mark as the warmest instance of that month on record for the globe. And as NOAA pointed out in its monthly summary released February 20, that occurred without the warming influence of an El Niño in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, where conditions remain neutral.
Few places around the world had a cool month, with much of India and Alaska/Western Canada providing exceptions. Europe through to northern Asia was particularly warm, and January ranked fifth warmest over the contiguous US. This was largely due to remarkably tight circulation of the “polar vortex,” which helped keep Arctic air bottled up north of the mid-latitudes.  More at Ars Technica.  NOAA summary here.

NEW DINOSAUR DISCOVERED IN CHINA SHOWS DINOSAURS GREW UP DIFFERENTLY FROM BIRDS

A new species of feathered dinosaur has been discovered in China, and described by American and Chinese authors.
The one-of-a-kind specimen offers a window into what the earth was like 120 million years ago. The fossil preserves feathers and bones that provide new information about how dinosaurs grew and how they differed from birds.
“The new dinosaur fits in with an incredible radiation of feathered, winged animals that are closely related to the origin of birds,” said Dr. Ashley Poust, who analyzed the specimens while he was a student at Montana State University and during his time as a Ph.D. student at University of California, Berkeley. Poust is now postdoctoral researcher at the San Diego Natural History Museum.  More at Phys.org.  Original paper at Anatomical Record.

#WhyTeachEvolution CAMPAIGN

NCSE’s #WhyTeachEvolution campaign, intended to draw attention to the critical importance of teaching evolution in our nation’s schools, culminated on Darwin Day — February 12, 2020.
As part of the campaign, NCSE asked scientists, educators, authors, and science fans to write brief essays answering the question “Why teach evolution?”
Writing in The Humanist, NCSE’s Glenn Branch explained the campaign, suggesting, “The greater the range … the greater the reassurance it provides to science teachers.”
Listed contributions at NCSE.
FEBRUARY VIDEO
Early Earth Science Controversies: Mass Extinctions and Ice Ages