"Coach Juneau, can we get our CO2?" Ava Bourg, 14, asked.
Her group's first try sprung a leak of the representative CO2, which was in reality orange vegetable oil. But Bourg and her classmates were ready to try again after Trenton Nash's careful handiwork using Play-Doh to try to plug it.
In the waning days of the recently ended school year, the Dutchtown Middle School students in Ascension Parish were finishing a four-day lesson about climate change, carbon dioxide, and carbon capture and sequestration. About 1,700 eighth graders in nine Ascension Parish middle schools received these lessons through a curriculum developed by Rice University's Tapia Center.
It was another sign of industry's attempts to improve understanding and acceptance of the new technology, which supporters view as vital to Louisiana's economic future.
Not everyone is convinced. Critics point to ExxonMobil's funding for the school program while arguing that it downplays controversy surrounding carbon capture. They view it as seeking to instill an industry point-of-view.
Known as CCS, the technology cuts climate-warming CO2 emissions by permanently injecting them underground in a near-liquid state. Enticed by federal tax credits and facing market pressures to reduce carbon intensity, oil, gas and petrochemical industries are pushing to introduce the technology to Louisiana.
Though LSU scientists and industry advocates say the technology behind CCS is safe and well-tried through years of oil field use, the push has drawn opposition from environmental groups as well as conservatives who question the need and the effects.
The Tapia Center has been putting on CCS lessons for four years in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana. Southern University has had summer camps for the previous three years, and pilot projects went on last year in individual Ascension and East Baton Rouge parish schools, according to ExxonMobil literature.
The large-scale Ascension Parish program was aided with a $51,000 professional development grant from the ExxonMobil Foundation to the Tapia Center that included materials expenses, company officials said.
ExxonMobil is a proponent of the technology, which would benefit its operations in Louisiana and elsewhere. The company also owns a key CO2 delivery pipeline across southern Louisiana, western Mississippi and southeastern Texas that other companies may use to reach distant injection sites.
The oil giant has also been a financial benefactor of the Tapia Center, having provided seed money to develop the curriculum and $100,000 in scholarships annually for students to attend the center's STEM summer camps, according to the center and ExxonMobil.
Paul Hand, the center's executive director and creator of the CCS curriculum, said that though ExxonMobil provided financial support, the scientific judgements behind the curriculum are his and his staff's alone. He said the curriculum from the independent center takes no position on the debate surrounding the technology.
The ExxonMobil dollars helped pay for center staff who spent about a year working through trial and error to find the right demonstration materials. What's resulted from that work, he explained, allows students to see what the underground reservoir would be like through relatable items and face "STEM challenges that are directly related to the lives of our students," tied to Louisiana academic standards.
"And CCS is something that is happening today. It's happening over the next few decades, and our students should know about it, and we want to show it to them in a hands-on way," he said.
In various materials about programs like the Ascension one, ExxonMobil officials say their support of CCS and other STEM-related curricula with hands-on components is a positive example of education, industry and communities working together. The programs help make science relevant for students and inspire them to seek a future in scientific and technology-related fields, the officials say.
'HOW HUMANS IMPACT THE ENVIRONMENT'
The students use a plastic cup, partially filled with pasta or pinto beans and green water, as their underground reservoir. This cup is pierced by two straws meant to represent underground wells and sealed off at the top by a layer of Play-Doh. Students learn what the differences in rock porosity mean for storage.
During teacher training sessions at LSU in early February — months before the classroom lessons rolled out — Ascension school officials and some teachers said their district should provide information about subjects students might encounter and tie them to Louisiana's science standards.
"Our standard is about how humans impact the environment, so that's what we're exploring with this partnership, both positive and negative," said Erin Babin, middle school science supervisor for Ascension.
She said her school leadership never considered not exposing students to the information, but believes in sticking to the science: "We talk about controversial things. We talk about AI. We talk about carbon capture. We talk about evolution, you know what I mean?'
In the lessons, Juneau's students learned about the natural and human sources of CO2 emissions, the threat of climate change, and the role renewable power and CCS can play in cutting emissions.
They also learned about the geology tied to carbon storage and some potential downsides of different CO2 mitigation methods: windmills can kill birds; CCS isn't suited for every geology, though it is on the Gulf Coast, the lesson says.
A teacher of 23 years who is also a soccer coach, Juneau taught the Tapia curriculum to 97 students in all. He said the lessons reinforced things they have already learned about the carbon cycle, global warming and states of matter.
"I think the science is solid with it," he said.
He said he would use the lesson next year if he had more materials.
'COMPLETE AND UTTER LIE'
Some environmental and community groups who oppose CCS as an effective way to address climate change criticized the Tapia lessons because they say they appear to promote the technology. These groups also suggested the curriculum doesn't delve deeply enough into the technological questions they contend still surround the injection practice.
Concerns center around whether CO2 injection will work as advertised after a federal model project had underground leaks. Criticism has also come from rural residents worried about land rights, new delivery pipelines, the safety of underground aquifers and the cost to U.S. taxpayers.
Other opponents reject the curriculum entirely because they do not accept the overwhelming science surrounding manmade climate change.
Caitlion Hunter, research and policy director of the Rise St. James community advocacy group, argued that the use of everyday materials underplays the risks, from pipeline corrosion to the consequences of a high-pressure CO2 leak.
"Students exposed to this Exxon-funded curriculum are being misled, plain and simple," she charged.
Hand said those kinds of questions are beyond the level of an eighth-grade class focused on the basic science of the states of matter, climate change and rock porosity.
Mark T. Guillory, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel from Rapides Parish and one of the founders of Save My Louisiana, which strongly opposes carbon capture, took a harsher line.
He called the program "outrageous indoctrination and propaganda," and criticized teaching the "complete and utter lie" of manmade climate change. He also said the curriculum ignored the potential dangers of CCS.
"The real question is, why is industry producing or financing the production of curricula for public schools?" he asked.
The two varying sets of criticisms illustrate the complex debate over carbon capture playing out across Louisiana.
PLAY-DOH AND GREEN BRINE
Back at Dutchtown Middle School, after Nash was done with the Play-Doh, he, Bourg and the others got their second batch of pretend liquid CO2 from Juneau. Classmate Miriam Miles began pouring the orange oil down a thick, plastic straw.
At first, no leaks. Eventually, though, some orange oil started to appear on the purple Play-Doh around the two straws, but a far smaller amount. And plenty of green brine was also moving up from the reservoir and out of the second straw, as planned, and far more than in the first attempt.
Juneau reminded the group that the difference is to be expected because of the spiral pasta's greater porosity.
The students recorded their results. Soon, it would be time for lunch.
Before the work had begun on the final demonstrations, Juneau had offered his class a little grace. It proved correct.
"We're going to make mistakes. Y'all never done this before. Hopefully, we do better between the second and first trial," he said.
© 2026 The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
