Creationist Zoo in UK wins award.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

Creationist zoo wins EDUCATION AWARD from GOVT-BACKED body http://bit.ly/1elB27C http://bit.ly/18thzO2 . Come on UK, we're better than this..

Is this woman right in her article http://t.co/V8bgNU210G Are creationists distorting things and how can a Government group give them a award when education there is basically distorted facts.?

Noah's Ark presents its own particular brand of young-Earth creationism. As it says on its website: "We think that evidence shows the world is much older than 6,000 years but much younger than 4.5 billion years." One of the posters suggested that rates of radioactive decay were faster in the past, and this is why scientists have overestimated the age of the Earth.
There's a wilful subversion of scientific-sounding language too. The "earth history" page on their website opens with "Aspiring to an open, critical approach to explain what we see in the natural world." And yet none of the material I read suggested an even slightly critical approach to the religious text on which the whole edifice rested. I walked around, reading the posters, and feeling more and more incredulous: robust scientific facts were being distorted, bent out of all recognition, in order to fit with the religious story.
Now, you could visit Noah's Ark and not read the posters. But they're clustered by the picnic tables in the indoor play park – somewhere all the children are almost guaranteed to visit. But then, that's surely the real purpose of the place: you might think you're going there for a fun afternoon out, but you're really acquiescing in someone's attempt at a bit of light indoctrination.
I left knowing that I wouldn't want my children to go on school trips there. Why do I feel such strong antipathy? I'm pleased to live in a country where people are free to express their opinions, so why do I care so much about a few posters in a zoo? It's because, like Richard Dawkins, I believe that religious fundamentalism has the potential to ruin scientific education. Apart from obscuring scientific facts, it teaches a way of thinking that is incredibly rigid.
The evidence for a (very) old Earth and for evolution is overwhelming. But believing in these things isn't like a religious faith – it comes from a belief in evidence. The amount of scientific evidence stacked against the biblical creation story brings the scales crashing down in favour of an Earth that is billions of years old, populated by life forms that have evolved through natural selection. In order to believe the Bible account, then, you have to turn your back on that mountain of evidence. But it seems that, to persuade others, what you must do is take some of that evidence and twist it to fit the story. This is, purely and simply, subversion of science to fit a religious agenda. At Noah's Ark, you are not allowed to question the Bible. And where science and the Bible clash, every piece of scientific evidence is called into question, shoehorned into place if possible, or thrown out if it's too dissonant.
Its website says: "Educational field trips are a great way to learn… A school trip can encourage and consolidate learning in many areas of the National Curriculum." Teachers planning a school trip can visit for free, to familiarise themselves with the zoo.
In this zoo, the creationists have built themselves an impressive soapbox. I felt that I had to visit, if only to know what I would be excluding my children from if I stopped them going on school visits to this popular destination. I want my children to learn critical thinking, but the "critical approach" put forward by Noah's Ark is a disingenuous redressing of a centuries-old story which has its place in our culture but has absolutely nothing to do with science education.

[Himster]

Lying to children is part of the education process/childhood experience: you'll be told that Columbus' contemporaries believed the earth was flat, you'll be told a bearded fatman in a red suit will give you presents, you'll be told the Exodus happened, you'll be told home-economics is only for girls, you'll be told Jesus sacrificed himself and that's why we eat chocolate eggs on Easter plus there's a bunny for some reason, you'll be told videogames make you violent, you'll be told if you fail at maths you fail at life................... and so on and on and on. It's all lies. If we took away all the lies what do we have left? Truth? Nobody cares about truth until they're 20 and by then it's too late anyway, so why bother.

(Woah, I sound bitter there.)

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

Telling Dinosaurs and man lived together happily?And they get awards.I believe Creationist and Catholic and Saudi Arabia funded schools should be stopped from poisoning the minds of children.

[Col. Tartleton]

Humans drove dinosaurs to extinction with our sins.

/child guilt

[Lazarus]

Jesus sacrificed himself and that's why we eat chocolate eggs on Easter plus there's a bunny for some reason

Well of course there's a bunny. Who else is gonna lay chocolate eggs?

What's the award actually for? Because it can still contain educational information even if it is buried under mounds of delusion. Besides - since when did kids read on field trips? I was a kid at a zoo with my school once. I watched Eric the crocodile being fed by Steve Irwin, looked at the pictures on the info panels, ate a sandwich with a Koala and tried to pretend I had a personality when the girls from my class walked by. No child has ever absorbed information from a school trip anywhere ever.

[Aeneas Veneratio]

I feel like building Jurassic Park around their property and then forget to secure the internal walls...

[Valden]

You need to blame the very secular free market fundamentalists running the country who have an ideological commitment to privatising education: consequently, they have "freed up" many schools by allowing them to deviate from the National Curriculum. Expect to see more institutions like this gaining awards, and more and more schools teaching utter rubbish, be it 'religious', political or otherwise. The real problem here is not Noah's Ark (which looks like a fun place), it is the Conservative UK government's senseless approach to education policy. Don't let your anti-religious sentiment get in the way (as the lady who wrote the Guardian article clearly did) of the fact this reward is the indirect result of a failing secular policy on education. She should be writing an article demanding the government amend its policy, rather than a pointless diatribe against 'knowledge' most thinking people (and probably most children anyway) know to be inaccurate. We need to address the cause, rather than the offshoot, of the problem.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

What's the award actually for?.

Zoo’s education award

Noah's Ark Zoo Farm education officers Catherine Tisdall and Amy Lissemore with a black and white ruffed lemurSamantha Pope, News EditorMonday, February 3, 2014
1:55 PM








NOAH’S Ark Zoo Farm has achieved recognition for the education programme it runs at its Wraxall site.
The zoo hosts more than 15,000 school children each year, ranging from infant school pupils to teenagers studying A-levels, and has now been awarded the Quality Badge from the Learning Outside of the Classroom scheme (LOTC).
The badge is a nationally-recognised benchmark that demonstrates that those places awarded it have met several stringent indicators for education.
Assessments are conducted by the Government-appointed Council for Learning Outside of the Classroom.
Noah’s Ark education coordinator Catherine Tisdall said: “We are very proud of our unique hands-on approach to learning at Noah’s Ark.
“Achieving the Quality Badge is the result of an awful lot of hard work from a team dedicated to providing an exceptional educational day out for visitors.”

The award comes after Alice Roberts, professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, published an article in the Guardian in December raising concerns about how the creationist zoo promotes religious views to its visitors through posters.
Professor Roberts wrote how she fears such posters, which she said ‘distorted scientific fact’, could interfere with a child’s education.
* * *
* We have acknowledged there are contrasting views on this issue, and have added a line to make that fact clear – however, the award presented to Noah’s Ark is a reputable one, and we have reported on that fact without taking sides or passing judgment on the merits of the facility itself

This award.

[fkizz]

Kinda ridiculous, this is a living fossil. But people go there, it makes profit and even receives government awards..

[Himster]

When I read this thread's title first I thought Creationists were being put into zoos, you know, for our amusement/a reality TV show.
That would have been way better.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

http://t.co/cpbLrpNpBW This sums it up 22 questions from creationists to evolutionists.

[Lazarus]

"The badge is a nationally-recognised benchmark that demonstrates that those places awarded it have met several stringent indicators for education."

Eh, seems like an award a zoo could win even if it had no panels at all. You learn about the animals and guff and what they eat and junk. I see no problem with giving them an award for that - assuming that's what they earned the award for.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There are six high level generic quality indicators. They are:

1. The provider has a process in place to assist users to plan the learning experience effectively;
2. The provider provides accurate information about its offer;
3. The provider provides activities or experiences which meet learner needs;
4. The provider reviews the experience and acts upon feedback;
5. The provider meets the needs of users; and
6. The provider has safety management processes in place to manage risk effectively.

There's the major criteria to meet - the full list is over yonder at http://lotcqualitybadge.org.uk/quali...tors-in-detail and is probably kind of relevant to the discussion.

If anything, I'd blame the award for being named in such an airy-fairy way. "Quality Badge" - quality of what you dopes? Quality cafeteria? Quality teeth? The name of the award doesn't reflect what its indicators are or what you get the award for, and that's kind of important. Even if you were to add the name of the scheme it just becomes the Quality Badge for Learning Outside the Classroom which... seems unclear. What aspect of the outside learning is quality? Is it the information? The delivery system? I don't know. The thing to take from my post is "Quality Badge" is a stupid name for an award.

[Denny Crane!]

You need to blame the very secular free market fundamentalists running the country who have an ideological commitment to privatising education: consequently, they have "freed up" many schools by allowing them to deviate from the National Curriculum. Expect to see more institutions like this gaining awards, and more and more schools teaching utter rubbish, be it 'religious', political or otherwise. The real problem here is not Noah's Ark (which looks like a fun place), it is the Conservative UK government's senseless approach to education policy. Don't let your anti-religious sentiment get in the way (as the lady who wrote the Guardian article clearly did) of the fact this reward is the indirect result of a failing secular policy on education. She should be writing an article demanding the government amend its policy, rather than a pointless diatribe against 'knowledge' most thinking people (and probably most children anyway) know to be inaccurate. We need to address the cause, rather than the offshoot, of the problem.

Let us look at the legislation that created faith schools and first allowed deviation from the NC shall we? I know you find facts inconvenient for your rants.

The Labour Government under Tony Blair established academies in 2000. The chief architect of the policy was Andrew Adonis (now Lord Adonis, formerly Secretary of State at the Department for Transport) in his capacity as education advisor to the Prime Minister in the late 1990s.[2]
The introduction of academy schools was opposed, notably by teachers' trade unions and some high-profile members within the Labour Party, such as former party leader Lord Kinnock.[3][4] There are no academies in Wales, as education policy there is devolved to the Welsh Assembly. To date [2013], the Welsh Government has followed a policy of having no academy-status schools in the country.
By May 2010 there were 203 academies in England.[5] The Academies Act 2010 sought to expand the number of academies and additionally extended academies with the introduction of the Free Schools Programme. By April 2011, the number of academies had increased to 629, and by August 2011, reached 1070.[6] As of July 2012 this number reached 1957, double that of the previous year.[7] and, at 1 November 2013, it stood at 3,444.[7]

........................

Until 1997, the UK funded only Christian or Jewish faith schools (Muslim schools existed but were privately funded), but the Labour Government 1997-2007 expanded this to other religions, and began using the term "faith school".[6]
Education in England includes many schools linked to the Church of England, which controls governance and admittance while the funding comes from the state. At voluntary-aided schools, the Church pays for 10% of projects; at voluntary-controlled schools, the Church contributes only the building itself.[7] The Church sets the ethos of the schools and influences selection of pupils; at voluntary aided schools, usually half or more of the school's places are reserved for "actively involved" members of the Church determined by local clergy.[7] These form 68% of the approximately 7,000 Christian faith schools in England in 2011.[2] The Roman Catholic church maintains 30% of schools.[2] In addition, there are 12 Muslim,[2] 42 Jewish, 4 Hindu and 2 Sikh[2][not in citation given] faith schools. Faith schools follow the same National Curriculum as state schools, with the exception of religious studies, where they are free to limit this to their own beliefs.
About one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England are faith schools.[8] Some of these have converted to Academy status, which means they can set pay and conditions for staff, and no longer have to follow the national curriculum.[8] However the Department of Education and Science expects evolution to be taught as part of every science curriculum and does not expect creationism etc. to be taught.[9]

And they do teach creationism, I was taught it.

So yet another load of crap about the supposed harm that the free market and conservatives are doing to the UK. Do you ever bother to remotely understand anything about UK politics before going off on a rant?

Enforced school prayers, creationism, religious abuse have been hardwired in our education system for years. There is nothing and hasn't ever really been any reason to be proud of the UK educational system.

[Eugene of Savoy]

When I read this thread's title first I thought Creationists were being put into zoos, you know, for our amusement/a reality TV show.
That would have been way better.

Nice post... no really, you should be proud.

Anyhow, I don't see anything wrong with the zoo winning the award. Why is this thread even here?

[Lazarus]

I think the idea is it's an award from an educational institution going to something based on creationism. The fact that the award is from an educational institution seems to be misleading in that it might by proxy suggest there is educational merit to creationism, which is a problem. However, the award itself doesn't seem to suggest that at all - but who's going to go digging that info up? I think the problem is as I said, the award is so generic and vague that while there's nothing wrong with it being awarded to the institution, it will likely be confusing to people who don't research the actual award.

[Eugene of Savoy]

I think the idea is it's an award from an educational institution going to something based on creationism. The fact that the award is from an educational institution seems to be misleading in that it might by proxy suggest there is educational merit to creationism, which is a problem. However, the award itself doesn't seem to suggest that at all - but who's going to go digging that info up? I think the problem is as I said, the award is so generic and vague that while there's nothing wrong with it being awarded to the institution, it will likely be confusing to people who don't research the actual award.

Despite what you think about whether creationism is true of not, it's not a zoos primary function to teach about human origins. Since you believe creationism is false, does that mean the zoo cannot provide better education about animals?

I know you never said they didn't, but honestly, should we make a thread every time a creationist wins any science award.

[Lazarus]

Since you believe creationism is false, does that mean the zoo cannot provide good education about animals?

Eh, seems like an award a zoo could win even if it had no panels at all. You learn about the animals and guff and what they eat and junk. I see no problem with giving them an award for that - assuming that's what they earned the award for.

I'm quite happy for them to receive educational awards for their non-creationism efforts. The point of the thread seems to be that it is somewhat misleading though - which is no fault of the zoo, of course. That's on the award givers.

[basics]

When I read this thread's title first I thought Creationists were being put into zoos, you know, for our amusement/a reality TV show.
That would have been way better.

Himster,

Now wouldn't you like to see this ole dinosaur behind bars? The thing that gets me is how you guys are so scared of there being an alternative to the rubbish that you have been taught and believe in. For example I have around twenty books written by scientists who spend many pages of work showing that evolution is a farce. Now there's one thing about scientific truth in that if one derails one aspect of it, the rest, no matter how feasible, is destroyed. That's evolution for you. The alternative.....

" In the beginning, Elohim, created the heaven and the earth." And after six days it was all up and running meaning that God, Elohim, could rest on the seventh. In the first two chapters where these words are found lie much more than that in respect of what it all pointed to. So, they establish that there is a Creator yet point to a Saviour who in time did come and the thing is, no science at any level can prove otherwise, no, not even the twisted version called evolution. So, lock me up.

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

The thing that gets me is how you guys are so scared of there being an alternative to the rubbish that you have been taught and believe in. For example I have around twenty books written by scientists who spend many pages of work showing that evolution is a farce. Now there's one thing about scientific truth in that if one derails one aspect of it, the rest, no matter how feasible, is destroyed. That's evolution for you. The alternative.....

" In the beginning, Elohim, created the heaven and the earth." And after six days it was all up and running meaning that God, Elohim, could rest on the seventh. In the first two chapters where these words are found lie much more than that in respect of what it all pointed to. So, they establish that there is a Creator yet point to a Saviour who in time did come and the thing is, no science at any level can prove otherwise, no, not even the twisted version called evolution. So, lock me up.

If you keep hanging on to the ridiculous assumption that evolution can and is easily disproven,which it is not, all the arguments that you try to make are just a waste of oxygen...

[Divine Augustus]

Not to rip off Bill Nye's facts, also because im now taking some studies in Dendrochronology but their are trees older than 6000 years, thus disproving the young earth theory.

That in itself is enough proof.

Also why are you using Elohim are you pagan now?