In The News

1. In The News

2. How To Use This Lesson • Go-Givers PowerPoints are designed to inform and support critical thinking and discussion. They can be used in their entirety. However, please feel free to save this lesson to your computer and edit, omit or add content as appropriate for your pupils. • Please remember: • Always show the PowerPoint in ‘slide show’ view. Links and animations will only work when in this mode. • A green dot appears in the bottom right hand corner of the slide when the slide animation is complete. • The Learning Activities are intended for use in conjunction with the PowerPoints and are linked on the last slide. N.B. This slide show is best accompanied by some gentle music. The slides are on automatic timing.

3. Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico On 20th April 2010 there was an explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.

4. Two days later, it sank. 11 workers had been killed in the accident.

5. It caused a massive spillage of crude oil into the sea.

6. There was no known method of plugging the leak in the wellhead 5,000 feet below the water surface, and no known method for fully containing the slick.

7. People set to work, doing everything they could to protect the coastline from the oil.

8. They put down oil booms to stop the oil spreading.

9. They set fire to the oil – though it caused air pollution.

10. They used planes to spray chemicals – though scientists warned they could destroy sealife.

11. …..but they couldn’t protect every part of the shoreline!

12. So the clean up began …

13. The oil had caused massive damage to the environment and its wildlife. Hermit Crab

14. Sadly, the disaster happened at the worst possible time of the year when nearly three-quarters of all American water birds – and all of its 110 species of migratory songbirds – use Louisiana's wetlands to rest or nest. Laughing Gull

15. In spring and early summer more than 25 million birds cross the Gulf each day. Brown Pelican

16. This time of the year is the most important time for the Gulf's fisheries. Oysters have just started to reproduce, speckled brown trout have started spawning, shrimp have just begun to grow. Oysters Shrimp Trout

17. Some local shrimpers are predicting that it will be seven years before they can set out to sea again. Others say that they will be out of business long before then. Shrimp boat

18. We now know that tests immediately before the pipeline blew showed that there were problems. Bosses decided to ignore them in order to save tens of millions of pounds. The cost of the disaster to their company, BP, amounts to over £7 billion … so far!

19. However, experts point out that most of the new oil fields, like those off Angola and Brazil, involve drilling in even deeper waters! May be it’s time for us humans to do something about our addiction to oil! Oil exploration off the coast of Alaska has been held up while Shell proves it can prevent a similar disaster.

20. Glossary Crude – unrefined, unfinished Slick – a thin spread of oil floating on water Boom – a floating barrier Migratory – moving from one place to another every year Spawning – laying eggs Addiction – being unable to do without something.

21. Activities to complete this lesson include: • A decision making activity on the subject of energy sources. • Designing and making model electric cars. Click on the image above to view and/or download learning activities.