Lesson Plans for Teachers

LESSON ONE
Oil Crisis:
Get Into the Game
A global oil crisis has begun. Oil usage worldwide has increased to where the oil supply can only meet 95 percent of the demand. Begin the inquiry into the effects of less oil in our lives.

LESSON TWO:
How Bad Can It Get?
Fuel prices rise in anticipation of when actual supplies start to run short. It's clear that there is no quick fix to the shortage. Tensions start to rise.

LESSON THREE:
Life Is Starting to Change
Widespread changes are starting. Goods and services that depended on cheap oil are failing.

LESSON FOUR:
Elasticity and Collapse
This lesson investigates the factors that define elasticity in relation to oil—factors such as lifestyle, geography, setting and community.

LESSON FIVE:
Oil Dependency Among Nations
The oil crisis has caused some nations to reconsider their foreign policy objectives—and to aggressively seek to acquire oil.

LESSON SIX:
Food Without Oil
The impact of oil on our food supply is one of the most serious aspects of the oil crisis. Shortages are forcing many people to look for locally grown food.

LESSON SEVEN:
Breakdown
Governments have been hit as hard as anyone by the crisis, leading to the existence of red and green zones in cities and refugee camps in rural areas.

LESSON EIGHT:
Preparation and Community
With problems piling up and the government unable to help, many communities across the nation are turning inward for solutions.

LESSON NINE:
Lessons Learned
Now that the crisis has stabilized, how do we go forward? How do we balance our desire for energy's benefits with the risks and costs of procuring it?

LESSON TEN:
Your World Without Oil
Help out the World Without Oil team. Script and deliver your own citizen report that communicates what is happening to you in the crisis.

TEACHERS: LESSON TEN

Your World Without Oil

Introduction

Communication is a vital skill for life in general, but it is even more critical in a crisis. Inside the World Without Oil game, people are using text, voice, images and video to communicate the realities of the oil crisis, to pool information about complex problems and collaborate on solutions. Outside the game, these new media communications are a meaningful (and engaging) way for people to express their ideas and insights about a possible future and the consequences of choices we make in the present.

In this final lesson, students get the chance to create their own "in-game" citizen report, springboarding from the WWO material they have found most memorable in earlier lessons.

Lesson Objectives

Students will:

Continue to immerse themselves in the realistic WWO scenario.
Listen to and analyze an "in-game" event report.
Develop a message goal and conceptualize, script and deliver their own citizen narrative to achieve that goal.
Express their personal strategies predicated upon anticipated events.
Continue to reflect on the life changes that would occur during a prolonged oil shortage.

Before the Lesson

Listen to Anna_Matter's Week 21 podcast.
Prepare your own short (2 min) "in-game" reaction to the events you've experienced in World Without Oil, similar to the WWO podcast. Other podcasts can be found here.

Part 1: Set the Stage

Student Page for this lesson >>
This page summarizes ideas and instructions for students.

Re-immerse the students: briefly remind them of what's happened previously in a World Without Oil.
Brief students about an audio clip they are about to hear. Each student group will soon be asked to script and deliver a similar audio clip. The goal is to communicate their own impressions of their life from inside a World Without Oil.
Play Anna_Matter's Week 21 podcast.

Part 2: Take Action

1. Discuss with the students some of the choices and techniques used by Anna. Notice for example how she interweaves her own stories with those of the WWO players and events she is reporting on. Are you able to visualize the building she lives in and the other people who live there?

2. Have students separate into groups, then give each group an assignment: quickly script a short broadcast narrative like Anna's that includes a summary mention of at least 5 WWO stories that students remember from prior lessons. (The videos by Kalwithoutoil would be examples.) The summary mention should communicate in a sentence or two what happens (and what students learned) in each story.

3. The student script should also include personal story, as Anna's did, that communicates their own perspective on their life within a World Without Oil.

4. The group is striving to create a report that conveys what the oil crisis is like—and makes the crisis real.

5. Remind the students that they are inside the oil crisis. They thus have a hard deadline to come up with their narrative and prepare to deliver it. The narrative should not be more than 3 minutes long.

Part 3: Lesson Activity

1. At the deadline, stop work. Bring the class back together and focus the students on listening to the narratives.

2. Have a representative or representatives from each group deliver its narrative.

3. When finished, discuss the effectiveness of the narratives in achieving these goals:

Communicating the essence of the 5 WWO stories.
Communicating the essence of the student's life within the oil crisis.
Conveying what the oil crisis is like.
Making the oil crisis seem real.

Part 4: Reflect

Have students reflect on the elements that go into a citizen report and the role of each element in achieving the report's goals. Does a citizen report differ from a newscaster's? What makes a citizen report more believable and trustworthy? What makes it more memorable and communicative?

Part 5: Take It Further

Students can draft and record longer podcasts, or even script and shoot videos that are entirely "inside" the alternate reality of World Without OIl.

Additional Resources

View the student page for this lesson >>

World Without Oil Classroom Home >>

McREL Standards

National Standards (McREL)

Overarching (All Lessons)

Standard 44.

Understands the search for community, stability and peace in an interdependent world

Level IV (Grades 9-12), Benchmark 2:
Understands rates of economic development and the emergence of different economic systems around the globe (e.g., systems of economic management in communist and capitalist countries, as well as the global impact of multinational corporations; the impact of black markets, speculation and trade in illegal products on national and global markets; patterns of inward, outward and internal migration in the Middle East and North Africa, types of jobs involved and the impact of the patterns upon national economies; the rapid economic development of East Asian countries in the late 20th century and the relatively slow development of Sub-Saharan African countries)

Lesson 10: Specific Standards

Economics

Standard 6:
Understands the roles government plays in the United States economy
Level IV, Benchmark 7:
Understands that few incentives exist for political leaders to implement policies that entail immediate costs and deferred benefits, even though these types of programs may be more economically effective

Civics

Standard 28:
Understands how participation in civic and political life can help citizens attain individual and public goals
Level IV, Benchmark 3:
Knows the many ways citizens can participate in the political process at local, state and national levels and understands the usefulness of other forms of political participation in influencing public policy (e.g., attending political and governmental meetings, demonstrating, contacting public officials, writing letters, boycotting, community organizing, petitioning, picketing)

Geography

Standard 5:
Understands strategies used in natural resource management and conservation
Level IV, Benchmark 5:
Knows traditional energy sources (e.g., petroleum, coal, wood) as well as alternative energy sources (e.g., wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, biofuels)

State Standards (All Lessons)

Credits

Lesson plans by Dan McDowell and Ken Eklund
Reviewed by Cari Ladd

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