Lesson Plan: Unprepared – Lessons From Two Massive Oil Spills

Subjects:

U.S. History, Civics/Government, or Geography that examines Human-Environment Interactions.

• This lesson may work well in a Civics/Government course to examine the role of government agencies in regulating environmental policy and enforcing safety in extraction protocols.
  Biology/Environmental Science
• The policy and regulations aspect of oil spills and the immediate and long-term effects of oil discharged into marine environments and coastal ecosystems can serve as a springboard to in-class investigations of oil cleanup.

Grade Level:

7-12

Lesson Duration:

• 1-2 class periods, depending on the skill level of students.

Essential Questions:

• Who was responsible for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and subsequent cleanup?
• Did the response to the 1989 spill result in policy changes? What effect, if any, did those changes have in 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded?
• What obligations do oil companies have for extraction safety and spill cleanup?
• What role do government agencies have in regulating the oil industry and monitoring oil spills?

Lesson Objectives:

Students will:

• Examine the circumstances around two major offshore oil spills in United States waters.
• Analyze changes in environmental policy over time
• Examine the long-term effects of oil spills on ecosystems and coastal communities.
• Formulate an argument about long-term solutions to prevent oil spill incidents.

Materials:

• Retro Report video “Unprepared: Lessons from Two Massive Oil Spills” (Transcript)
• Student Activity handout
• Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• NOAA’s Long-Term Monitoring Program in Prince William Sound, Alaska | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Long-term effects on Marine Mammals, Sea Turtles | National Oceanic and Atmospheric
• The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Office of Response and Restoration
• Optional: Oil Spill Solutions: Environmental Engineering and Oil Spills | TryEngineering
• Optional: Gulf Spill Restoration | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Procedure:

1. Students will begin by viewing the film “Unprepared: Lessons from Two Massive Oil Spills” and answering the questions provided on the student activity document.
2. As a class, discuss students’ answers to those questions and pose follow up questions:
   1. What potential solutions might reduce the need for oil extraction?
   2. What actions were taken after each of the two oil spills?
   3. What are some of the competing factors that may influence the regulation of oil extraction?
3. Optional: If this lesson is done for an environmental science class, consider doing one of the hands-on activity from TryEngineering (Oil Spill Solutions: Environmental Engineering and Oil Spills). This activity provides first-hand experience and offers additional insight about the difficulty of oil spill cleanups on a large scale.
4. Have students examine several websites that document the long-term effects of oil spills on ecosystems in Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Due to the amount of text in these resources, teachers may want to review skimming techniques.
   • Impacts of Exxon Valdez
   • NOAA’s Long-Term Monitoring Program in Prince William Sound, Alaska
   • Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Long-term effects on Marine Mammals, Sea Turtles
   • Teachers may want to provide sentence frames as necessary. For example, for the question: “Based on the evidence from these sites, would you conclude that the Alaska habitats have or have not recovered from the oil spill? (Note: you are using sites from NOAA. These are carefully monitored for science accuracy.)”___ has been caused by ___, thus___. ___ has led to ___.

     As a result of ___, ___.

     Based on the evidence from ___, ___.

5. Ask students to review the history of environmental policy over the years resulting from a series of oil spills from The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) – blog.response.restoration.noaa.gov
6. Finally, challenge the students to develop a position statement about companies and local/state/federal governments preventing or responding to oil spill disasters in the future. Cite examples from the sources that they have used in this activity.
7. Optional Activity: Restoration projects are documented by state, region or open ocean. If your students reside in a state affected by oil spills, consider asking them to research restoration projects in your state at Gulf Spill Restoration and report on the focus of the effort.

About the Author:

Peg Steffen is an award-winning former middle and high school science teacher, curriculum writer, education program manager for NASA and NOAA’s National Ocean Service, and managing editor of The Earth Scientist, the journal of the National Earth Science Teachers Association.

Standards

Common Core Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.9: Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

C-3 Framework Standards for Social Studies:

• D1.4.9-12. Explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through engaging source work, new compelling and supporting questions emerge.
• D2.Civ.1.9-12. Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of local, state, tribal, national, and international civic and political institutions.
• D2.Civ.5.9-12. Evaluate citizens’ and institutions’ effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
• D2.Civ.13.9-12. Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes, and related consequences.
• D2.Geo.12.9-12. Evaluate the consequences of human-made and natural catastrophes on global trade, politics, and human migration.
• D2.His.1.9-12. Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.
• D2.His.5.9-12. Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.
• D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

Performance Expectations – HS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity

• HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
• HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.

• • ESS3.A: Natural Resources

• Resource availability has guided the development of human society.

• All forms of energy production and other resource extraction have associated economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical costs and risks as well as benefits. New technologies and social regulations can change the balance of these factors.   

• • ESS3.B: Natural Hazards

• Natural hazards and other geologic events have shaped the course of human history; [they] have significantly altered the sizes of human populations and have driven human migrations. (HS-ESS3-1)

• • ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems

• The sustainability of human societies and the biodiversity that supports them requires responsible management of natural resources.        
• Scientists and engineers can make major contributions by developing technologies that produce less pollution and waste and that preclude ecosystem degradation.    

Performance Expectations – MS- ESS3 Earth and Human Activity

• MS-ESS3-2. Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects. 
• MS-ESS3-4. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems.
• ESS3.A: Natural Resources 
  • Humans depend on Earth’s land, ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere for many different resources. Minerals, fresh water, and biosphere resources are limited, and many are not renewable or replaceable over human lifetimes. These resources are distributed unevenly around the planet as a result of past geologic processes
• ESS3.B: Natural Hazards
  • Mapping the history of natural hazards in a region, combined with an understanding of related geologic forces can help forecast the locations and likelihoods of future events.
• ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems 
  • Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things. 
  • Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise. 

AP Human Geography

• Unit 7: Industrial & Economic Development

AP Environmental Science

• Unit 6: Energy Resources & Consumption