EDMONTON — Citing footage of climate conference attendees applauding remarks about taxing oil companies, Alberta's Ministry of Education announced Thursday it will introduce a new Grade 9 social studies unit teaching students to recognize that enthusiastic clapping for environmental policy is, in fact, a sophisticated form of war profiteering against the province.

The module, titled Critical Thinking: Approved Conclusions Edition, will guide students through a series of scenarios in which they must determine whether a given act of cheering supports Alberta's economy or undermines it. A sample worksheet asks pupils to evaluate eleven photographs of crowds and circle the ones engaged in 'celebration' versus 'coordinated sabotage of provincial revenue.'

"Our concern is that young people are being radicalized into believing that wildfires and energy policy might be related," said the minister, standing in front of a banner reading Resources, Not Resentment. "We're not telling children what to think — we're simply providing them a list of approved opinions and the consequences for holding the other ones."

Under the new framework, the conference attendees who cheered for the federal environment minister will be presented to students as a cautionary case study, appearing in the textbook between a unit on the Riel Rebellion and a full-page advertisement for a career in pipeline maintenance. Teachers have been instructed to pause if any student claps during the lesson.

The Alberta Teachers' Association noted that the curriculum arrives in the same week the province quietly removed the chapter explaining what carbon is. A ministry spokesperson clarified that the chapter had not been removed but rather "reclassified as a separate, optional, and currently unavailable resource."

Asked how the unit would address the wildfire that destroyed homes across the region, officials said students would learn that the fire was 'an act of nature,' the response to it was 'a triumph of resilience,' and any attempt to connect the two was 'beyond the scope of Grade 9.' The lesson concludes with a reflection question: 'In what ways can you, the student, avoid cheering for the wrong things?'