Resource Library

National Environmental Education Week (EE Week) has compiled their own set of Oil Spill resources. They include everything from websites and articles to visuals and lesson plans. Content spans grades K-12, so make sure to check for your appropriate grade level.

Discuss the oil spill with your students using this fact sheet. The Subsea Oil Recovery System is a large structure that can be placed over the largest leak source in the Transocean Deepwater Horizon Rig. The system is designed to collect hydrocarbons from the well and pump them to a tanker at the surface, where they will be stored and safely shipped ashore.

Earth Gauge compiled a list of resources to help you investigate current status and spill trajectory forecasts, ocean current forecasts, health impacts and more.

This lesson focuses on how engineers use various techniques to provide solutions to oil spills or other threats to natural water resources. Students work in teams to analyze an "oil spill" in the classroom, then design, build and test a system to first contain and then remove the oil from the water.

Responding to Oil Spills offers numerous resources for discussing and interactively exploring oil spills. These include online tours of relevant topics including dispersants and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, as well as relevant documentaries and studies. There are also data sets and software that allow students to explore how to respond to oil spills.