Clean Up The Oil Spill Decision Making Activity

This oil spill activity is perfect for Earth Day.

It teaches students how to research engineering design methods to clean up water pollution spills.

Students must then synthesize and analyze the information collected.

The last step in this activity is for students to take into account the human and environmental impacts of each clean-up method and decide which method is the best one to use to cleanup the spill.

Students will complete research on a variety of oil spill clean up methods and use the formal letter writing format to present their decision.

Students will be asked to read a real newspaper article about a tanker truck accident that caused tar to leak into wetlands.  (Although this assignment is geared toward the city of Kingston due to the accident location, any similar news article would work and this assignment can be changed to reflect any location)

Part A:

Students will be assuming the role of a local council member for the community. Their task is to do research on a spill cleaning method.  I had two students sign up for each method so they could work together. I have included a student sample slide in this file as well.

The clean-up methods found in this activity are:

•Booms and Skimmers

•Chemical Surface Dispersants

•Controlled Burns

•Sorbent Materials

•Vacuum/pumping

•Vegetation Cutting

•Low-Pressure Flush

•Manual/Mechanical Cleanup (shovels, trucks on shore)

•Natural Recovery

•Water-Oil Separating Devices

•Gelling Agents

•Biological Agents (help decompose soil faster)

•Hay

•Oil Eating Mushrooms

Information that students were asked to include on their slide:

1. How the method works.
2. How effective it is.
3. A picture
4. The cost of the method.

Part B:

After reviewing the pros and cons of each method, students will then change roles to become the Mayor of the town.

With the slides completed from Part A, students are now responsible for deciding on the best method to clean up the spill from the tanker truck crash.

The Mayor's responsibility is to write a formal letter to the people of their town.

In this formal letter, the Mayor must persuade the community that after thoroughly examining the research, a decision has been made as to how the spill will be cleaned up.

The formal letter writing can be differentiated based on your student's entry points.

The letter could be one paragraph (introductory sentence, body sentences and a concluding sentence).

Or, if your students are ready to expand their writing skills, you could have an introductory paragraph body paragraphs and concluding paragraphs.

The writing outline is for paragraphs as that is how I have my middle students start expanding their writing skills, however I have included the editable word doc so you can change to writing format and outline to suit your student's needs.

In either format your students will need to summarize the problem (spill), the engineering methods researched (I ask my students to summarize their top 3 choices so they have enough to write a body section in their letter), and finally, what method was chosen and why.

A general letter template is provided that students can just fill in.  A sample letter written by one of my students is included as well.

The zip file contains:

1. An editable .pptx file for the PowerPoint presentation you can share with your class.
2. A pdf file of a slide that shows you a student sample of the research.
3. An editable word doc of the letter writing assignment as the mayor.
4. A pdf file of a student sample letter.

I hope your students enjoy this activity as much as mine did!

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