In the wake of the monumental environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, it's time we learn more about how deep water drilling for oil is carried out, why it is done, and who does it. The Macondo Project in the Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (MC252) in the Gulf is spilling oil at the rate estimated at anywhere from 5,000 to 210,000 gallons per day. The oil is coming from 5,000 feet below the the surface of the ocean. The Gulf is rich in oil, in fact the world's deepest drilling oil rig is located there--operated by Shell Oil, the Perdido platform--8,000 feet below the ocean surface. The cost for clean up is upwards of $7 million daily, more as the environmental damages mount. MC252 is owned by Beyond (British) Petroleum (65% share), Andarko Petroleum Corporation (25% share) and Mitsui Oil Exploration (10% share). See the Boston's Globe The Big Picture for photos; see opinion piece Spill, Baby, Spill by Holly Moeller--The Inevitable Consequence of Oil Dependency--in MIT's newspaper, The Tech.
Some students may have a particular sensitivity to this environmental debacle. We can look to Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences for understanding and insight. Naturalistic intelligence was added in 1999 to the original seven intelligences. Education Professor Leslie Owen Wilson of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, explains in her blog, Newer Views of Learning:
Naturalistic intelligence deals with sensing patterns in and making connections to elements in nature. Using this same intelligence, people possessing enhanced levels of this intelligence may also be very interested in other species, or in the environment and the earth. Children possessing this type of intelligence may have a strong affinity to the outside world or to animals, and this interest often begins at an early age. . .Often this is due to their highly-developed levels of sensory perception.
National Geographic for Kids has a blog, Giant Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that may be of interest to students. Also, PBS Kids has a blog, The It's My Life Blog for tweens, blogging on The Gulf Coast Oil Disaster. A keyword search of the children's materials at the San Francisco Public Library turns up a few books on oil spills and drilling for oil.
