Activity
1. Begin the class by asking the obvious: “Why should a high school
student care about the availability of inexpensive oil and coal?” “Why
should YOU care about how the United States delivers power to its industries
and society?” Depending on whether the students have been to the first
science and government classes or not will probably determine whether they
have answers of substance or not. Even if the students cannot point to anything
that would make them interested in this topic, you have a starting point; you
will have to support them more as they work on the matrix to get them going.
2.
On the matrix, start with the Direct Impact column. What are the products
that are made with petrochemicals that make our comfortable
lives possible?
How do we use gasoline and coal? If students have a hard time getting going
ask them how their lives are different from those of people living a hundred
or two hundred years ago. Depending on whether the students have the knowledge
necessary to fill in most of the Direct Impact column or not, you may wish
to fill these in as a class or by having the students do so in small groups
then share their ideas in a whole class discussion. You may come up with
many more things that are on the teacher copy of the
matrix.
3.
Next ask the students to get with a partner and to brainstorm
the outcomes that will go in the following
column of Impact/Availability. In other words,
think out loud about the consequences on all aspects of the economy if
one raw material, crude oil, goes up in price. What does
the cost of a barrel
of oil have to do with a person’s quality of life in general? It
goes far beyond the initial effect of making one’s gasoline bill
go up. What will be sacrificed to pay for a higher gasoline or home heating
bill?
Would some
things become too costly for teenagers to buy? Would a parent’s job
or a student’s part time position be cut because sales were so depressed
in a certain area? When the class comes together to compare answers in
the Impact/Availability column ask the students to predict what further
ripples
would be caused by each price increase or lack of availability of a product.
At the same time, consider what viable alternatives exist. Is it realistic
to have large groups of people implementing these alternatives? What are
the drawbacks of each or what must be done for them to be practical for
an entire
nation to employ?
4.
Hopefully, the students will begin to see the highly
interdependent nature of our energy production with our
economy and standard
of living.
While there
are no simple answers, it is important to start to ask questions and
to look beyond initial consequences. The purpose of this
lesson is not to
dishearten,
but to stimulate thought, to dispel the assumption that “someone” (else)
needs to take care of this situation, or that the government should just “fix” the
problem. This lesson is designed to dovetail into the initial physics lessons
in this quarter and to create authentic interest in the question of how
the United States needs to prepare to power the nation in a way that supports
both
economic success and environmental health.
Closure
From this lesson it is evident that coal and oil sustain our highly complex,
industrialized, sophisticated society. But there are tradeoffs with
any source of power. Ask the students if they can point to any political
or economic downsides (such as dependence on foreign nations for our
supplies) and health impacts (these sources of power are putting chemicals
into the environment that have been linked to various diseases) from
relying on just coal and oil. Just how complex the situation is will
be the subject of the next lesson.
Embedded
Assessment
Student engagement in this lesson can be assessed by the quality and quantity
of the answers that students supply for the matrix and by the amount of meaningful
class participation.
Homework
None. |
