Please tell me this isn't true

From here:

Students in a Society and History (SAH) class on “the Impact of Climate Change” at a Tasmanian high school, must donate to a Canadian environmental organisation in order to be awarded points in a “scavenger hunt” and to gain marks.

Comments

[EdmundTheBeekeeper]

And me too.
All my education was in Tasmania. That ended in 1990 but I do think it was a pretty good one. I don't live there now but I do tell people with (maybe misplaced?) pride that it is a pretty good place to bring up children. It's reasonably impossible not to live close to the bush or farming and I have always thought that a good way to experience some reality about "The Environment"

[Deadman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjsuAc-n8-E. From 03:38, “And what are these students doing? They are running a school fair where all the proceeds go towards deforestACTION!”

[Deadman]

Report from last year’s Grade 7 class:

Well. It’s all go at the moment in Grade 7 at —— High. About 50 students are currently in charge of organising a school fair to be held on Friday, December 10. All proceeds are going towards the DeforestACTION cause. We have students working on fundraising ideas such as orangutan christmas decorations, organutan badges and hair clips, a treasure hunt around the school to find Orrie, orange smoothies, ginger cookies, orange snow cones and many more orange/orangutan themed stalls.
What's really great about this project is that the students are spreading the word about DeforestACTION and the destruction of orangutan habitat. Some of the guys involved are creating little gift vouchers for people to buy for Christmas. These gift vouchers lease 1 square metre of native forest in Indonesia for 100 years. We are hoping they will become a popular christmas gift/stocking-filler.

Comment by a student from the nearby primay school on the deforestACTION site:

I feel sad and heart broken about the orangutans being burnt and being kept as pets by people who don't know how to take care of them. I would not eat or buy Palm Oil products and make a donation in a jar. I feel incredibly sad about the mean people who cut down the habitat of one of our closest relatives, the orangutans.

[Deadman]

http://collaborateforchange.com/2011/04/20/21st-century-skills-10-simple-examples-of-entrepreneurship-and-innovation/.

http://collaborateforchange.com/deforestaction/

The DeforestACTION mission is:
Empowering young people to take real and powerful action to stop deforestation, by embracing 21st century learning, using the best technology.

DeforestACTION is about:

Monitoring and safeguarding Bornean forests (initially, then moving to other regions) from space with regular satellite images
Growing a new forest for local people, wildlife in need and sustainable energy for the world
Learning about and gaining respect for nature, especially our fellow beings including orangutans
Collaborating with other young people from across the world to achieve real results
Providing young people across the planet with unique, engaging and relevant experiences in which to develop and refine important 21st Century Skills
[and persuading credulous, environmentalist teachers to manipulate students into being fund-raisers]

[David S]

Selling worthless bits of paper to children is a pretty low form of fraud, in my view. But then as the team has shown on numerous occasions, fraud is fine as long as it is in a Good Cause.

[Deadman]

On the one hand, my son’s high school promotes Wellness:

Wellness is an important part of the curriculum in all grades. This is much more than a traditional Physical Education program. It is the ultimate aim of this learning area for each student to achieve physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing, ensuring that all students know how to make wise health choices for themselves and to take some responsibility for the health of others.

On the other hand, the teachers do nothing about the students’s smoking area:

During recess you can clearly see students smoking, and when they return to class they smell of smoke.

[GrantB]

I have some worries about this. I've never seen anything about it on Oz sceptic blogs. I imagine Andrew Bolt in particular would have been all over it. The school is not named. Anyway FWIW, here's an updated link listing some of the questions -

1. Make a map of the world showing where climate change is most severe (10 points).
2. Collect five pictures of areas affected by climate change (5 points). Add 10 points if you label your pictures and include two facts about each picture.
3. Collect two articles from magazines that explain efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (5 points). Add 10 points if you include a written summary of the articles.
4. Create a chart that ranks in order the main causes of greenhouse gas emissions (5 points).

There are more.

[kim]

A whole generation has been artificially dyed green, and will spend the rest of their lives trying to rid themselves of the stain.
=============

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

Deadman

On the other hand, the teachers do nothing about the students’s smoking area

But tobacco -- or whatever they are smoking -- is a "renewable" fuel source. It's green -- just like their lungs will be.

[David]

Reminds me of the WWF commercial about 'saving' the polar bears (from what..?) - 'send three pounds...'
What happens..? Does a WWF operative sidle up to a polar bear sitting on an ice floe, and say: 'Here y'are, mate - here's three quid - go and get yerself a nice fish supper...'...?

[Hengist McStone]

It isn't true.

One of the projects on the list is to sell the vouchers, which seems a bit out of order for part of an academic course, but it's optional . There are other projects instead. It's not an enforced donation by the students. The headline on IOCC is a gross exagerration . Quelle surprise.

[Deadman]

“I am really passionate about environmental things. It just really gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling,” said Victoria Kabbani, 15, one of 11 students in [a different high school] class. “I hope to show youth you don’t have to be rich to make a difference. If everyone in this school gave even two dollars, that would be a lot of money.”
Kabbani has earned top points on the DeforestAction site for getting her friends to donate and by not using products containing palm oil, often associated with forest destruction and the threatened extinctions of animals, including orangutans.

[Deadman]

I stand by the use of the word, “enforced”. The teacher, in position of authority over adolescent students instructs them (and manipulats them with a bribe):

“During your current course of study on climate change you will be required to conduct a scavenger hunt [...].
You will need to collect data or create as many of the projects on the scavenger hunt list as possible. The person that collects the most points is the winner and will receive a prize, with runner up prizes as well!!

Of course the children feel compelled to comply with the terms of the project. It is worth noting that, for lazier but wealthier students, the easiest way to gain points, and to outscore other, poorer but more industrious students, is to sell vouchers, and promote the environmentalist organisation.
Furthermore, the teacher propagandises for the Canadian organisation using peer-group pressure; for example:

Young people across the planet have chosen to do this for the orangutans, the animals they share the forests with, and for the planet they will inherit.
Plus, everyone can earn valuable DeforestACTION points for you and your school.

The children are instructed to donate their own money, and encouraged to persuade others to register with the collective. My son feels pressured, hates the class, and (as he wrote in his review of the class) has been mocked by the teacher for not mindlessly agreeing with her uncritical acceptance of claims which even the IPCC won’t accept. (See here.)
It’s a nice racket, to exploit the uninformed sympathies and free labour of school-children.