Unit 5: Hazardous Waste, Petroleum, and the Amazon

Unit 5 activities support the module goals of being able to articulate the principles of environmental justice as they relate to examples of water scarcity and contamination in varied geographic locations and proposing potential solutions to inequitable access to clean water based on principles of the water cycle.

The specific learning objectives for this unit align with the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages as follows:

• Communication:
  • Interpersonal Communication: Spanish language learners interact and negotiate meaning in spoken conversations to share information, reactions, and opinions about the social and environmental impact of contamination committed by oil companies in Ecuador.
  • Interpretive Communication: Spanish language learners understand, interpret, and analyze what is heard, read, or viewed regarding the history and perspectives regarding the Texaco-Chevron case in Ecuador.
• Cultures:
  • Relating Cultural Practices to Perspectives: Spanish language learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on the relationship between the practices and perspectives of indigenous communities in the Amazon as they relate to water resources.
• Connections:
  • Making Connections: Spanish language learners build, reinforce, and expand their knowledge of other disciplines while using Spanish to develop critical thinking. As part of this, learners will be able to:
    • identify the relationship between soil particle size and soil permeability,
    • predict the direction of groundwater flow based on water table elevation levels, and
    • apply principles from the water cycle to a specific oil well site in the Lago Agrio region.
• Acquiring Information and Diverse Perspectives: Spanish language learners access and evaluate information from indigenous and oil company perspectives regarding the Chevron-Texaco case based on recorded interviews and websites in Spanish.

This unit is designed to function as one day of instruction in an intermediate-level Spanish class. The plan is for a 50-minute class. However, these materials would also work well for a longer class period or spread out over two lesson periods. Although the instructions below include both Spanish and English, the lesson is designed to be conducted entirely in Spanish. The activities can be done in class, completed together, or completed as homework, depending on time and subject needs. On its own, this unit communicates the need for an informed and science-literate citizenry to be empowered to make observations of their physical surroundings. The unit explains the power of a community to call attention to inequitable situations regarding access to clean water and the value of cultural perspectives as they apply to natural resources.

In class you will need a chalkboard or whiteboard, a projector, and computer access to the Internet.

PRE-CLASS ACTIVITY

Students should be given the El caso Chevron Texaco (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 101kB Jul17 24) handout to complete before class. If possible, distribute the handout as an email attachment or via other electronic means so that students may click on the Internet links.

Answer key to El caso Chevron Texaco (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 104kB Jul17 24)

IN CLASS

"El caso Texaco-Chevron": small-group discussion, page 1 of handout (10 min)

Begin by asking students to divide into small groups of three to four. Have students look at page 1 of their pre-class activity handout, compare their responses, and discuss the following questions in their small groups.

¿Cuáles son los puntos que más les impresionaron del caso Texaco-Chevron? ¿Por qué?

Return to the full class and ask the groups to share their answers and ideas related to the above questions. Follow-up as appropriate with discussion of any other questions from page 1 of the handout.

"El caso Texaco-Chevron": small group discussion, page 2 of handout (10-15 min)

Write the following questions on the board or project them so that everyone can see them. Ask students to return to their small groups and discuss these questions relating to page 2 of the handout.

1. ¿Qué tienen en común las varias perspectivas indígenas que se presentan aquí?
2. Considerando la perspectiva de Chevron que leyeron, ¿qué defensa imaginan que daría Chevron a las demandas y acusaciones sobre la conducta de Texaco en la zona?
3. Si fueran jueces en este caso ¿qué preguntas tendrían para decidir el caso?

Follow up with a full-class discussion asking the various groups to share their responses. Allow for sufficient time to compare the questions generated from question #3, since they will be reconsidered in the next section.

Slide presentation: El caso Chevron Texaco y la permeabilidad del suelo (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 5.7MB Jul17 24)

Part 1: Timeline and oil extraction diagrams (10–15 min)

Tell students that they will be hearing more information about the history of the Chevron-Texaco case. Ask them to listen and note which questions are answered from the list they previously generated (see question #3 above).

Present slides 1–5 allowing time for think-pair-share activities to respond to the questions in slides 4 and 5. After presenting these slides, ask students if the material answered any of their questions from #3 above. Ask if they have other questions about the case after learning this additional information or if it changed their thinking about the case.

Part 2: Soil permeability and water table levels (10 min)

Slides 6–11 introduce concepts related to soil permeability and water table levels. These concepts will be used later to predict the consequences of contamination at an oil drilling site. Several slides include questions that engage students with the material and are intended for think-pair-share activities.

The slides and in-class activities are interactive and convey information about the events related to Texaco oil production in Ecuador, soil permeability, and water tables.

An excellent extension to this unit is to have students create a mock trial scenario with one group serving as judges, another as Chevron, and a third group as the indigenous plaintiffs. To prepare for this, students could be assigned to further research the trial (several resources are suggested below) and search for the most recent developments.

In-class oil well activity (10 min)

• Actividades para el Pozo Lago Agrio 02 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 2.9MB Jul17 24)
• Answer key to Actividades para el Pozo Lago Agrio 02 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 1.3MB Jul17 24)
• Rubric to evaluate Actividades para el Pozo Lago Agrio 02 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 103kB Apr30 16)

If more time is needed, this can be assigned as homework. It may help students to have the material in the slides available for review if this assessment activity is assigned as homework.

In this assessment, students will:

• predict the direction of groundwater flow based on water table elevation levels, and
• apply measures of soil permeability to predict the potential for groundwater contamination at the Lago Agrio 02 oil well site in Ecuador.

Distribute the handout and ask students to work in teams of two or three to evaluate the information and answer the questions.

• Propiedades físicas del suelo, from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
• Juicio Crudo: Chevron's perspectives on judicial fraud against them in Ecuador
• Chevrontoxico: The campaign for justice in Ecuador
• Zaitchik, Alexander (2014) Sludge Match: Inside Chevron's Billion Legal Battle With Ecuadorean Villagers, Rolling Stone, August 24, 2014
• Crude: The Real Price of Oil, the promotional page for the movie produced in 2009