Science education
Science education is a controversial subject in the United States. Several states banned the teaching of evolution in the 20th century, most notably the state of Tennessee with the Butler Act of 1925. It was followed by the Scopes Trial, in which the state of Tennessee accused Scopes, a high school teacher, of teaching evolution. Although he was found guilty and fined, the trial showed declining public support for Fundamentalists. The Scopes Trial had an important impact in the larger creation versus evolution debate. In the following decades, the term "evolution" was omitted in many biology textbooks, even when the text discusses it. These bans on teaching evolution were overturned by a Supreme Court ruling in Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968. Since 2001, there has been a resurgence of anti-evolution bills, one of which, the Louisiana Science Education Act, was passed. This Act allows public schools to use supplementary material that is critical of the scientific theories such as evolution and global warming in science classrooms.