{"id":1738,"date":"2026-09-01T19:14:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T19:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2026-09-01T19:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T19:14:34","slug":"the-plastics-industry-is-writing-school-lesson-plans-to-push-plastics-on-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1738","title":{"rendered":"The Plastics Industry Is Writing School Lesson Plans to Push Plastics on Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This fall, 54 million K-12 students are headed back to the classroom for another year of lessons in all the classic subjects: math, English, history, biology. But there\u2019s another subject that\u2019s been sneaking into school curricula: plastics.<\/p>\n

A from the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition documents the many ways the plastics industry has been inserting its agenda into classrooms across the U.S. \u2014 including through lesson plans and worksheets, hands-on science experiments, and a program called \u201cPlastiVan\u201d that travels from city to city teaching students about \u201cthe contribution plastics make to modern life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industry interests offer these resources to teachers for free or for cheap, according to the report. The materials tend to highlight the necessity of plastics while downplaying their significant downsides to human health and the environment. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen that information is provided to kids, it obfuscates the true impacts of plastic pollution,\u201d said Madison Dennis, senior policy and advocacy manager for Plastic Pollution Coalition and one of the report\u2019s main authors. Besides harming marine life, plastics can expose people to hazardous chemicals, clog storm drains and contribute to flooding, and release planet-warming greenhouse gases. Dennis\u2019 organization is calling for stricter school policies against the use of industry-sponsored learning materials.<\/p>\n

The report lays out four case studies of plastics industry \u201cpropaganda\u201d for schoolkids. One involves the Society of Plastics Engineers, or SPE, a trade group that recently became a division of the Plastics Industry Association. SPE\u2019s include activities like a \u201cplastic scavenger hunt,\u201d which aims for students to \u201cunderstand that plastics are ubiquitous and their importance to society and their personal life.\u201d A video titled \u201cYour Bottle Means Jobs\u201d explains how plastics recycling supports local employment. <\/p>\n

Another case study highlights the American Association of Chemistry Teachers, an initiative of the Dow Chemical Company. One of the association\u2019s lesson plans teaches elementary and middle school students how to compare the strength of various types of plastic bags that can be found in a grocery store. After a brief experiment, the lesson invites them to \u201cpretend [they] are an employee for Dow Chemical Company\u201d and are designing a plastic bag for a customer. <\/p>\n

While many of the materials claim to support STEM learning objectives, they do so while promoting familiar industry talking points, emphasizing the affordability and safety of plastics. Some acknowledge plastic pollution as a serious problem, but they blame irresponsible consumer behaviors and, instead of recommending less plastic be produced, propose more recycling as the primary way to address it. <\/p>\n

In reality, only 9 percent of all plastics are recycled worldwide, and scientists have repeatedly warned that recycling will be unable to keep up with projected growth in plastic production. Investigative reporting has shown that industry groups knew this decades ago, but promoted recycling anyway in order to defuse growing concern over plastic pollution.<\/p>\n

Wendy Johnson, a science education specialist at the National Center for Science Education, said the industry\u2019s lesson plans and worksheets don\u2019t reflect good pedagogy. Materials claiming to be aligned with state-level STEM standards don\u2019t say which standards they support, or how they\u2019re aligned. Lesson plans instruct students to read teachers\u2019 notes, or list industry-specific vocab terms like \u201cstretch blow molding\u201d or \u201cthermosetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy using all of these technical terms, it\u2019s tricking people into thinking \u2026 that they\u2019re doing science,\u201d Johnson told Grist<\/em>. What the materials really teach, she said, is \u201cideological perspectives about the economy,\u201d like the desirability of cheap consumer goods. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so clear that the purpose isn\u2019t to make really clear, easy-to-use materials,\u201d Johnson added. \u201cThe idea isn\u2019t to teach,\u201d but to get industry talking points into classrooms. The report documents plastics propaganda finding its way into schools since at least the 2000s. Between 2009 and 2011, for example, a plastics trade group lobbied the California Department of Education to add a section on \u201cThe Advantages of Shopping Bags\u201d to the state\u2019s high school textbooks. The PlastiVan initiative has been ongoing since 2011, and SPE claims it\u2019s reached over 132,000 students in total.<\/p>\n

Plastic Pollution Coalition suggests that the problem is particularly significant in schools located near petrochemical facilities. In Beaver County, Pennsylvania, for example, Shell operates a 386-acre plastics production complex and has invested millions of dollars in the development of plastics-related curricula and recycling programs, both for grade schoolers and for community college students. It has also donated hundreds of backpacks filled with school supplies, and bought one school a basketball court \u2014 seemingly in exchange for incorporating plastics recycling into the curriculum.<\/p>\n

Shell didn\u2019t respond to Grist<\/em>\u2019s request for comment. Neither did SPE, the American Association of Chemistry Teachers, nor the school district in Beaver County.<\/p>\n

Read more Fetterman Backs Trump\u2019s Insulting Comments Berating Opponents of Data Centers<\/a><\/p>\n

The report hints at a broader problem with STEM education in U.S. public schools. Teachers often lack the time and money needed to design their own curricula, or to buy high-quality materials and lesson plans needed for in-class labs or science projects. When vested interests come along offering support \u2014 whether it\u2019s the tobacco industry, the junk food industry, the pesticide industry, or the fossil fuel industry \u2014 it can be hard to say no. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a teacher, I\u2019m always looking for free stuff,\u201d said Suzie Hicks, a K-8 environmental educator in California who consulted on the Plastic Pollution Coalition report. Hicks said their education and background make them comfortable vetting materials for greenwashing \u2014 but that\u2019s likely not the case with most teachers. <\/p>\n

Dennis recommended that school boards adopt policies banning educational materials sponsored by the chemical, fossil fuel, and plastics industries. She also emphasized the need for better school funding more generally, so that teachers and districts aren\u2019t so desperate for ready-made learning materials.<\/p>\n

One way to achieve this would be to eliminate tax breaks for petrochemical processing and plastics production facilities, which deprive communities of much-needed cash.<\/p>\n

Katie Allen, executive director of Algalita, a California-based environmental nonprofit that develops educational materials on plastic pollution, pushed back against the idea that schools should ban all industry-sponsored content.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you start banning one thing, where does it end? What I want to do is give educators the benefit of the doubt and allow them to make their own decisions,\u201d she told Grist<\/em>. She argued that teachers should be trusted to properly contextualize industry materials \u2014 and that they could even use them to teach critical-thinking skills.<\/p>\n

That said, there are plenty of educational materials on plastics that are developed by non-industry sources. Algalita, for instance, offers free lesson plans on topics like plastic garbage patches in the oceans and biomagnification \u2014 the phenomenon where plastics build up inside sea creatures as you move up the food chain. The Story of Stuff, another nonprofit, offers a broader high school curriculum focused on the costs and consequences of producing consumer goods \u2014 including those made from plastics.<\/p>\n

Those learning materials still come from organizations with an agenda. But Hicks argued they\u2019re more trustworthy, since nonprofits usually aren\u2019t trying to sell something.<\/p>\n

Another option is for teachers to simply design their own curricula. That\u2019s what Jacqueline Omania, a recently retired elementary school teacher in Berkeley, California, did in 2015. She turned her classroom into a zero-waste laboratory, and each year for 11 years, Omania and her students developed a set of zero-waste classroom agreements, vowing to minimize their plastics use \u2014 by swapping individual glue sticks for a communal tub of glue, for example \u2014 while also advocating for more systemic change, like by campaigning for a policy requiring Berkeley restaurants to stop giving out single-use plastic foodware.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many challenges in the world, but plastic is something tangible,\u201d Omania said. \u201cIt\u2019s right there in front of them, and they can see the difference that they\u2019re actually making through their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in <\/em>Grist at https:\/\/grist.org\/article\/plastics-industry-lesson-plans-school-curricula\/.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Judge Strikes Down New York Law Requiring Polluters to Pay for Climate Change<\/a><\/p>\n

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Some lessons include plastic scavenger hunts, while others ask kids to pretend they work for Dow Chemical Company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Plastics Industry Is Writing School Lesson Plans to Push Plastics on Kids - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1738\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Plastics Industry Is Writing School Lesson Plans to Push Plastics on Kids - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some lessons include plastic scavenger hunts, while others ask kids to pretend they work for Dow Chemical Company.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1738\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-01T19:14:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"The Plastics Industry Is Writing School Lesson Plans to Push Plastics on Kids\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-01T19:14:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738\"},\"wordCount\":1382,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/eb53ae23fe4d848ea1049fc23695d1e9.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1738\",\"name\":\"The Plastics Industry Is Writing School Lesson Plans to Push Plastics on Kids - 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