Ryan+Tozier+Pipe+Dreams

View //[|Pipe Dreams]//(40 minutes) about the proposed extension of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Describe the film, then briefly describe two ideas for curriculum that could be delivered to high school kids living in areas near existing or proposed pipeline to prepare them for dealing with related issues throughout their lives. Also describe how you think students throughout the United States should be taught about issues of this type. Is it only important to teach such issues in regions directly impacted?

What is good for America is not necessarily what is it good for oil companies. This film covers the controversial issue of the Keystone Pipeline. This movie is a story about protecting the vast farmland in where the pipeline would run. It is considered the biggest environmental battle today. By passing over a fragile ecosystem, they threaten to destroy the Ogallala Aquifer one of the largest fresh water bodies on the planet. Already a pipeline runs through the Nebraska that goes where this company wants to put the pipeline. Company threatens to use eminent domain, or to take the property for a public purpose. The oil comes from tar sands in northern Alberta.

I think that most if not all students should learn about issue of their type as part of the standard curriculum for K-12 students. It is important to teach about these issue not just in regions that are directly impacted because with the support of the whole country the issue is more likely to be resolved beneficially. Learning about these issues will also help adults understand why the people of Nebraska were so opposed to the idea of a pipeline running through their land. I believe that students should be taught about these issues through case studies, which would force students to think about specific examples of issues so that they can more closely relate than teaching about it objectively.

Curriculum Ideas
 * 1) The most important thing for high school kids to learn if they will live next to such a hazardous pipeline their whole lives is the dangers of a spill and what they have to do to minimize the damages. I would do an activity that shows students some of the different techniques that are used to clean up oil spills. The purpose of the curriculum would be to emphasize the difficulty of removing heavy oils from the environment once they have been spilled. The activity could be as simple as pouring vegetable oil onto some plants and asking student to try and get it off. You would then make it far more difficult by using some sort of heavier oil so that it is closer to crude and harder to remove.
 * 2) It is also critical for people living around this area to recognize the environment effects of dirty oil on the surrounding area. This could be done in class by first explaining the impact and then doing an activity to portray those issues. One such activity could involve gathering several different plants and tainting the soil of some with crude oil and observing the effects. It would be more difficult to do animal experiments so simple showing powerful videos of affected birds, fish, and other animals covered in oil would be sufficient.