The Ethics of Recovery: What Happens After an Industrial Disaster?

A multinational natural gas drilling company is believed to be responsible for the displacement of 60,000 people in an East Java village left submerged by a tsunami of mud. Fed up with the company's delayed cleanup, Dian, a politically active teenager, galvanizes her neighbors to fight against the corporate powers accused of one of the largest environmental disasters in recent history.

Industrial accidents are a fact of life in the modern world. Oil spills, chemical explosions, leaks of toxic waste, and other disasters can devastate individual lives and communities for generations. The lesson uses an Indonesian drilling explosion documented in the film, Grit, to explore what ethical and equitable recovery from such disasters might look like. Students will use role play and group discussion to explore how stakeholders can increase understanding and come to consensus about steps required to make everyone whole. The lesson can be adapted to focus on business ethics, safe science and engineering practices, government regulations and responsibility, civic engagement, or all of these.

Faith Rogow, Ph.D., is the co-author of The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy: Critical Thinking in a Multimedia World (Corwin, 2012) and past president of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. She has written discussion guides and lesson plans for more than 250 independent films.