This fall, s are headed back to the classroom for another year of lessons in all the classic subjects: math, English, history, biology. But there鈥檚 another subject that鈥檚 been sneaking into school curricula: plastics.

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. 鈥� including through lesson plans and worksheets, hands-on science experiments, and a program called 鈥淧lastiVan鈥� that travels from city to city teaching students about 鈥�.鈥�

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.

鈥淲hen that information is provided to kids, it obfuscates the true impacts of plastic pollution,鈥� said Madison Dennis, senior policy and advocacy manager for Plastic Pollution Coalition and one of the report鈥檚 main authors. Besides harming marine life, plastics can , clog storm drains and , and . The Plastic Pollution Coalition is calling for stricter school policies against the use of industry-sponsored learning materials.

The report lays out four case studies of plastics industry 鈥減ropaganda鈥� for schoolkids. One involves the , or SPE, a trade group that recently became a division of the Plastics Industry Association. SPE鈥檚 include activities like a 鈥減lastic scavenger hunt,鈥� which aims for students to 鈥渦nderstand that plastics are ubiquitous and their importance to society and their personal life.鈥� A video titled 鈥淵our Bottle Means Jobs鈥� explains how plastics recycling supports local employment.

Another case study highlights the , an initiative of the Dow Chemical Company. One of the association鈥檚 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 鈥減retend [they] are an employee for Dow Chemical Company鈥� and are designing a plastic bag for a customer.

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.

In reality, only 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. has shown that industry groups knew this decades ago, but promoted recycling anyway in order to defuse growing concern over plastic pollution.

Wendy Johnson, a science education specialist at the , said the industry鈥檚 lesson plans and worksheets don鈥檛 reflect good pedagogy. Materials claiming to be aligned with state-level STEM standards don鈥檛 say which standards they support, or how they鈥檙e aligned. Lesson plans instruct students to read teachers鈥� notes, or list industry-specific vocab terms like 鈥渟tretch blow molding鈥� or 鈥渢hermosetting.鈥�

鈥淏y using all of these technical terms, it鈥檚 tricking people into thinking 鈥� that they鈥檙e doing science,鈥� Johnson told Grist. What the materials really teach, she said, is 鈥渋deological perspectives about the economy,鈥� like the desirability of cheap consumer goods.

鈥淚t鈥檚 so clear that the purpose isn鈥檛 to make really clear, easy-to-use materials,鈥� Johnson added. 鈥淭he idea isn鈥檛 to teach,鈥� 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 鈥淭he Advantages of Shopping Bags鈥� to the state鈥檚 high school textbooks. The PlastiVan initiative has been ongoing since 2011, and SPE claims it鈥檚 reached over in total.

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 鈥� seemingly in exchange for .

Shell didn鈥檛 respond to Grist鈥檚 request for comment. Neither did SPE, the American Association of Chemistry Teachers, nor the school district in Beaver County.

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 鈥� whether it鈥檚 the , the , the , or the 鈥� it can be hard to say no.

鈥淎s a teacher, I鈥檓 always looking for free stuff,鈥� said , 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 鈥斅燽ut that鈥檚 likely not the case with most teachers.

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鈥檛 so desperate for ready-made learning materials.

One way to achieve this would be to eliminate tax breaks for petrochemical processing and plastics production facilities, which .

Katie Allen, executive director of , 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.

鈥淥nce 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,鈥� she told Grist. She argued that teachers should be trusted to properly contextualize industry materials 鈥斅燼nd that they could even use them to teach critical-thinking skills.

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 鈥斅爐he phenomenon where plastics build up inside sea creatures as you move up the food chain. The Story of Stuff, another nonprofit, offers a broader focused on the costs and consequences of producing consumer goods 鈥斅爄ncluding those made from plastics.

Those learning materials still come from organizations with an agenda. But Hicks argued they鈥檙e more trustworthy, since nonprofits usually aren鈥檛 trying to sell something.

Another option is for teachers to simply design their own curricula. That鈥檚 what Jacqueline Omania, a recently retired elementary school teacher in Berkeley, California, . 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 鈥� by swapping individual glue sticks for a communal tub of glue, for example 鈥� while also advocating for more systemic change, like by campaigning for a policy requiring Berkeley restaurants to .

鈥淭here are so many challenges in the world, but plastic is something tangible,鈥� Omania said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 right there in front of them, and they can see the difference that they鈥檙e actually making through their actions.鈥�

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But for school districts, the issue is even more severe. The cost of fuel for just one school bus runs into thousands of dollars every year, and when diesel prices soar, school districts feel it in their budgets.

Electric school buses offer a solution. They can help districts save on fuel costs and insulate school budgets from the volatility of the global oil market. Here in Little Rock, we鈥檙e showing how this can work.

The district first introduced electric school buses to our fleet in August 2025, and already the savings are adding up. Over the first few months of the current school year, the old diesel buses cost 59 cents per mile in fuel. The electric buses? Just 31 cents.

With school buses averaging around 10,000 miles per year, that amounts to thousands of dollars saved for the district with every electric school bus we put on the road. Now, with diesel prices  over this time last year, those savings are even greater.

This solution isn鈥檛 unique to Little Rock. In , the district cut costs 80% per mile by switching from diesel to electric. It has put that money to good use, too, giving teachers a raise.

from the World Resources Institute shows just how dramatic these savings can be, particularly with diesel prices over $5. The institute estimates that the average annual cost to fuel a diesel school bus has risen from $7,600 last year to nearly $12,000 this year. And while electric rates have gone up too, the average cost to power electric school buses rose from an estimated $3,100 last year to about $4,000 this year.

In other words: It costs about three times less to power an electric school bus, on average, than one that runs on diesel. 

Crucially, the Little Rock district was able to use federal funding through the Clean School Bus Program to purchase our electric school buses. That鈥檚 important because right now, the upfront purchase price is higher than for diesel vehicles. But by using this funding to bring electric buses to our district, we鈥檝e been able to see savings right away.

There are plenty of other good reasons to bring electric rides to our community. The school buses are cleaner, quieter, smoother and healthier for students than the old diesel models. They have no tailpipe emissions that spew harmful pollutants that can damage kids鈥� developing lungs and overall health. And they鈥檙e a great way to show students that sustainability can start at home.

But when it comes down to dollars and cents, there鈥檚 one thing that鈥檚 clear: Our district is saving money on fuel costs thanks to the new electric school buses. While we hope to see diesel prices come down soon for everyone, we鈥檙e glad to know that the federal funds we used to bring clean, electric rides to our students is already paying dividends.

Chemical fires, leaks and explosions happen at U.S. industrial facilities 鈥� incidents such as four disasters in greater Los Angeles over Memorial Day weekend, including one involving a chemical tank that and forced and to evacuate, and a the next day in Longview, Washington, that killed 11 men.

Yet the Environmental Protection Agency is to the very program protecting Americans from such , the . The program was in response to the 1984 , in which a pesticide factory owned and operated by the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corp. leaked toxic methyl isocyanate gas, killing thousands.

Children are the most vulnerable to chemical disasters. Their are going through rapid and delicate developmental phases, and their immune systems 鈥� the primary defense against infections, diseases and harmful chemicals 鈥� are physiologically immature. It takes only tiny quantities of a hazardous chemical to cause life-altering and sometimes life-ending harm. Cancers and other ill effects can emerge at any time in the following days, years or even decades, and also in .

It is obvious that the nation鈥檚 barebones and outdated industrial safety systems desperately , and that an expansion of the Risk Management Program’s chemical list is long overdue. The program regulates , and only when they are stored in massive quantities. MMA, the volatile toxic chemical that triggered the evacuations in Southern California, is not even on the list, nor is , a fertilizer chemical that exploded in , in 2013, killing 15 and injuring hundreds. Had that disaster occurred in the daytime, some at nearby schools could have been harmed, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Ammonium nitrate is the same chemical that burned in a , fertilizer plant in 2022, engulfing communities in toxic smoke and threatening to become one of the worst disasters in U.S. history. The site is adjacent to daycare centers, grade schools and colleges, including Wake Forest University. The country has other facilities that store this same chemical.

A recent analysis found that are located within 10 miles of facilities that use or store large quantities of , or other extremely dangerous substances. One in three children attend school in chemical disaster vulnerability zones, the highest-risk locations based on chemical toxicity, blast potential, topography and other factors.聽

Utah, Rhode Island, Texas, Louisiana and Nevada have the largest proportion of . Kids in Houston and Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Memphis; and Wilmington, Delaware face even greater danger, with many schools located in multiple overlapping vulnerability zones. Children at San Jacinto Elementary School in Deer Park, Texas, are in the vulnerability zones of a staggering 41 chemical facilities, and 10 high-risk facilities. New Jersey, Texas, California and Illinois each have vulnerability zones that expose over 500,000 children to chemical risks. 

The Risk Management Program applies to over 11,000 chemical manufacturers, water treatment plants, industrial agriculture facilities, pulp and paper mills, and other facilities that use, store and manufacture immense quantities of toxic and flammable chemicals. It requires them to develop plans to prevent and mitigate chemical disasters. But the Trump administration’s proposal would . For example, it would eliminate the requirement that those using the largest quantities of the highest-risk chemicals with the greatest potential for off-site impacts, and factories that experienced recent chemical disasters, document and sometimes implement safer alternatives. It would also weaken or eliminate third-party audits after disasters, remove mandates for backup power for monitoring equipment used to detect unplanned releases during emergencies, and do away with planning requirements for power loss and the risk of such as hurricanes, flooding and wildfires.

The community members, environmental health and justice organizations, medical professionals and labor groups in our coalition have been petitioning the EPA to stop the rollback, but the agency has not responded. Everything this EPA is doing is shockingly reckless and callous, from of formaldehyde that the government considers , to approving made from “forever” chemicals, to proposing to exempt from the safeguards of the Clean Air Act.

Millions of children live and go to school in the shadows of chemical plants and other industrial facilities. They deserve an EPA that goes the extra mile to protect them, not one that plays Russian roulette with their lives.

Clarification: This story has been updated to include research that found that one in three children attend school in a chemical disaster vulnerability zone.