Mesa student challenges global warming theory

What happens when an Arizona junior high school student dares to question her teacher?

Fourteen-year-old Erin Hisserich of Mesa is on her way to finding out.

Erin Hisserich is in the ninth grade at Rhodes Junior High School in Mesa. She has dared to question some of the assumptions put forth in class by Scott Chandler, her science teacher, about manmade “global warming.” And now, Hisserich is wondering how her grades in science class are stacking up.

According to Erin, she and other students in the class were asked in February to write an introductory paragraph for an essay on what she could do to help stop global warming. “I told him in class that I don’t believe that human activity has caused the planet to warm, and I asked if I could write a counter-argument to his assumptions,” Erin explained to me.

At that point, Chandler agreed to her request, so Erin had the counter-argument turned in the next day.

“I’ve actually spoken to him (Chandler) about this issue after class, and he seems happy that I’m questioning things,” Erin said. “He told me that science is about people questioning other people’s theories and has encouraged me to question theories, too.”

But after Erin submitted her counter-argument, things got kind of weird. While other students received their graded assignments within a week or two, Erin never has seen what grade she received on her counter-argument.

That was in February. Later in March, Erin’s class was shown a film about global warming entitled “6 Degrees,” a National Geographic production. And before the movie, the class was given an assignment sheet with a series of questions about global warming on it — and all the questions on the assignment sheet were answered within the movie presentation. As Erin sat waiting for the film to get started, she got upset at the question, “What does the carbon footprint of the world’s cheeseburgers compare to?” (The correct answer, as Erin learned later, was “all the SUVs on Earth, or 200 metric tons of CO2.”)

“If I were given an assignment to prove that God does not exist, I wouldn’t participate in it,” Erin told me. “And I wasn’t going to participate in this question, either.”

So Erin wrote on her paper, “I don’t believe in global warming, and I’m not doing this,” and handed in the assignment sheet.

When this paper was returned, it had no grade on it, yet Chandler had included some personal remarks. “You miss so much when you live life wearing blinders,” he had written. This left Erin all the more confused.

“I just want to know where I stand in the class,” Erin now says.

But Erin isn’t the only one frustrated — her dad, Bob Hisserich, is too. “I e-mailed the school principal, Matt Devlin,” Hisserich told me. For his part, Erin’s dad wants the school to start teaching alternative views about the climate, alternatives to the assumption that changes in climate are all caused by human activity.

Devlin responded to Hisserich’s e-mail, explaining that he would review the matter with his science department to be certain that the school is teaching to “state standards” on the climate change issue, while at the same time encouraging students to think critically for themselves without being told what to think.

My own phone calls to Devlin’s office have not been returned. However, Kathy Bareiss, a spokesperson for the Mesa Unified School District, called me to explain that Chandler was following district policy in allowing Erin to complete an “alternative assignment.” Bareiss was, however, unaware of Erin’s claims that she completed the assignment in February and has yet to receive a grade on it.

So what next? The situation at Rhodes Junior High will resolve itself, I’m sure, in due time. But Erin’s experience raises questions for all Arizona students. How much “challenge” and “questioning” and “inquiry” is appropriate for students? And how well-equipped are Arizona schools and teachers to handle kids like Erin Hisserich who “think differently”?

I’d like to see Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne call for a review of the state standards — not only regarding global warming and climate change, but with the matter of students challenging theories, generally speaking.

It would be shame to think that, without such a review, Arizona’s public schools may carry on “wearing blinders.”

Austin Hill of Gilbert comments on political and social issues every Sunday. He hosts talk radio around the country and frequently is a guest host for Arizona’s Newstalk KTAR (92.3 FM). He is the author of “White House: Confidential — The Little Book of Weird Presidential History” and is a national columnist at Townhall.com. Contact him at

info@Austinhill.net.