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Grades level iconsGrades 8–12
Session time icon3 Sessions: 2 Hours Each
Genre information iconInformational, STEM
Resource type iconLessons

You Can’t Mix Oil and Water

Erin Ruane, 826 New Orleans
In this lesson, students are challenged to reevaluate the way water and land are represented on a map.
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Lesson instructions
What Your Students Will Learn

In this lesson, students analyze maps and literature to investigate how the oil industry impacts a number of species and apply this learning to create maps that depict the relationship between the oil industry and the environment.

Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.2.B Common Core Standards Icon
Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.2 Common Core Standards Icon
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.2.A Common Core Standards Icon
Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3 Common Core Standards Icon
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.A Common Core Standards Icon
Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.B Common Core Standards Icon
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.C Common Core Standards Icon
Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show the relationships among experiences and events.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.D Common Core Standards Icon
Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.E Common Core Standards Icon
Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.4 Common Core Standards Icon
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.5 Common Core Standards Icon
With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.7 Common Core Standards Icon
Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.8 Common Core Standards Icon
Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.10 Common Core Standards Icon
Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2 Common Core Standards Icon
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2.A Common Core Standards Icon
Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2.B Common Core Standards Icon
Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3 Common Core Standards Icon
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.A Common Core Standards Icon
Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation, establishing one or multiple point(s) of view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.B Common Core Standards Icon
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.C Common Core Standards Icon
Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D Common Core Standards Icon
Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.E Common Core Standards Icon
Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narrative.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.4 Common Core Standards Icon
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.5 Common Core Standards Icon
Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grades 9-10 here.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.7 Common Core Standards Icon
Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.10 Common Core Standards Icon
Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
What Your Students Will Produce

Students work as a team to create map(s) that depict the negative, lasting effects of oil infrastructure on the environment.

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