Team members assume the roles of a harbormaster, a physical oceanographer, a marine biologist, an economist, and a risk planner. Among the activities, for example, students use soda bottles and water to investigate how temperature differences in the ocean can cause currents. They use a tide chart as a tool for deciding when a tanker can leave a harbor. They also construct a chart of the major ocean life zones, showing typical life forms found in each. Students design a cost-effective method for using soundings to obtain a profile of a harbor, and they investigate how many gallons an oil tanker can carry and how large an oil spill it could potentially create.
Students calculate the accumulation of oil as it passes through a food pyramid.
Middle school students who lived near the Valde z oil spill tell their stories throughout the module. Other information that students need to complete the task must be obtained from encyclopedias, textbooks, films, and other sources they can find. The unit culminates with team reports and the selection of 1 harbor on the East Coast and 1 on the West Coast for oil terminals. The teacher's guide provides brief overview information on the module's structure and activities. It includes suggestions for guiding specific student activities, a scoring rubric for a performance assessment at the end of the unit, and an annotated bibliography.