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Back in March, a HEATED reader reached out with a question. I assigned that question to a reporter, and today’s story is the result.
Investigations like these the heart of why I started this newsletter. But they take time (three months for this one!), money, and editorial freedom—all of which are getting harder to come by in climate journalism. The only reason we have all three is because of our business model: 100 percent reader-funded, with no advertisers, non-profit funders, or billionaire owners demanding we keep pushing content.
To keep publishing investigations like this, we need more reader support. If you’ve been reading for a while, value this work, and have the means, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. It truly means the world.
The gas industry is sneaking into kids’ science classes
The Switch Energy Alliance markets its free classroom materials as “objective.” But they are backed by the fossil fuel industry, a HEATED investigation shows.
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As a science teacher, Helen is trained in practicing skepticism. So perhaps it was only natural that, at this year’s Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers Conference, she detected the distinct odor of B.S.
She was attending a presentation by the Switch Energy Alliance, a group that provides free energy and environment lesson plans to teachers and students across North America. The presentation’s content seemed innocent enough: Switch representatives were demonstrating how to build an electricity circuit using Play-Doh and batteries.
But Helen thought it was weird how often Switch representatives kept mentioning their work was “objective” and “non-partisan”—a couple times in that presentation, and then twice more in other presentations that weekend. So she asked the Switch representatives: Who are your funders?
According to Helen (not her real name, as she’s not authorized by her school to speak publicly) the Switch representatives did not answer directly. They only insisted they were not funded by “Big Coal.”
Unsatisfied, Helen asked HEATED to look into the group. And after a thorough investigation, we can report that Switch is not funded by Big Coal. But it is funded by some of the country’s largest methane gas companies—a fact that Switch does not mention on any of its public-facing material.
In other words, the Switch Energy Alliance presents itself as a neutral science education nonprofit, but is actually a gas-funded program designed to shape young people’s understanding of fossil fuels before they have the tools to recognize propaganda.
To see that propaganda for what it is, you have to look past the Play-Doh circuits, and into the lesson plans.
The gas giants behind Switch
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