[Infowarrior] - Child’s Play: Team Trump Rewrites a Department of Energy Website for Kids

[Richard Forno]

Child’s Play: Team Trump Rewrites a Department of Energy Website for Kids

Effort meant to inform younger generations about energy and the environment sees sentences reworked and pie charts eliminated.

by Patrick G. Lee
ProPublica, Feb. 17, 2017, 8 a.m.

Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. Energy Information Administration had an idea: Make an educational website for children about energy sources and the science behind them. 

In short order, the EIA created “Energy Kids,” which now features energy-themed sudoku and crossword puzzles, colorful pie charts and a know-it-all mascot called Energy Ant. Images of a school bus parked between a coal plant and an oil rig adorn the bottom of the web page, along with drawings of wind turbines, solar panels and an energy-efficient lightbulb.

During the Obama administration, Energy Kids even won multiple international awards for its content and design, as well as one from a digital publishing company that hailed it as “the best of the best in open and engaging government.”

The Trump administration, it seems, wasn’t altogether impressed with the site or its awards. In recent weeks, language on the website describing the environmental impacts of energy sources has been reworked, and two pie charts concerning the link between coal and greenhouse gas emissions have been removed altogether.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/childs-play-team-trump-rewrites-a-department-of-energy-website-for-kids