Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Surfers Hit Hard by Foam Company Closure, 12/27/05
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec05/surf_12-27.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Are there any products that you can think of that are only made by one company? Why do you think that is?

2. What is a monopoly? Are there monopolies in the U.S. economy? Give examples.

3. Are companies allowed to use dangerous chemicals to manufacture products? What happens to the chemicals? Who makes the rules that govern what companies can do with dangerous byproducts of manufacturing?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Why did the price of surf boards go up suddenly?

The price of a custom surfboard went up $200 overnight on news that Clark Foam - the country's primary supplier of foam used to make surfboards - was shutting its doors.

2. Who is Gordon Clark?

Gordon Clark, founder of Clark Foam and co-inventor of the foam surfboard, announced the decision Dec. 5.

3. What were surfboards made of before the invention of foam boards?

Before the invention of foam boards in 1958, surfboards had been made of balsa wood and had to be carved by hand.

4. What are a "blank" and a "shaper?"

Clark Foam produced surfboard blanks - blocks of foam that manufacturers and craftsmen, called shapers, cut, sand and paint to make custom surfboards.

5. What percentage of the surfboard blank market did Clark Foam represent?

"Clark Foam supplied the unshaped blanks for about 90 percent of all custom-made boards purchased worldwide - and those boards make up nearly three-quarters of the total international market," Bjorn Deboer of Stewart Surfboards told the Associated Press.

6. Why does Clark Foams decision to go out of business concern so many people?

Clark Foam's dominance as a supplier means its closure will affect all levels of the surfing industry.

With so few competitors, surf shops, surfboard manufacturers and shapers are having a difficult time finding new suppliers.

7. Why did Gordon Clark close his business?

In his letter, Gordon Clark cites the cost and frustration of complying with state and county environmental regulations as the reason for his decision to close up shop.

8. What is TDI and why is it a concern?

The primary concern involves Clark Foam's use of the toxic chemical toulene diisocynate, or TDI. Exposure to TDI particles in the air can cause severe and chronic lung problems.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. What is the law of supply and demand? How does it apply to this story? Explain.

2. What is a monopoly? Why are they sometimes risky?

3. In economic terms, what does it mean to "diversify"?

4. Clark Foam's closure will create problems for custom surfboard shops in the next few months, but some say Clark Foam's closure may help the industry in the long run because it may lead to more innovation. Do you agree? Why or why not? Explain.

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.