Timeline Checklist For Oil Sands Sustainability Project

Timeline Checklist

September
-I have Taken part in the quality and chemical reaction test for science ___
-I have chosen at least 3 current events and political cartoons to analyze ___
-I have written rough copy of PSA ___

October
-I have completed Oil Sand chemical equations ___
-I have developed a standpoint/ position on the issue for the debate ___
-I have an outline for the political cartoon ___
-I have finished the good copy of the PSA ___

November
-I have completed the effects of tailing chemicals on biodiversity assignment ___
-I have created a rough copy of my debate ___
-I have created a rough copy of my political cartoon ___
-I have completed a rough copy of the business letter ___
-I have recorded the PSA ___

December
-I have created a presentation to display the findings and opinion of science labs ___
-I have presented the PSA ___
-I have written a good copy of the business letter ___
-I have taken part in the debate ___
-I have completed the good copy of the political cartoon ___


End of December
-All assignments are completed ___
-I have handed-in all assignment to be review by teachers ___
-I have created a reference list for all subjects, to show where I got research information ___

January
-I have received assignments back from my teachers and made any necessary revisions ___
-I have loaded my project onto E-portfolio ___

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Introduction and Outline for Oil Sands Sustainability Project

Introduction and Outline for Oil Sands Sustainability Project

Grade 9 Students will have the opportunity to participate in a research-based inquiry project to study the Alberta Oil Sands. They will critically assess all aspects of the Oil Sands, and inquire the effects locally and globally.
The focus of the project is to integrate across all subject areas a significant portion of the mandated curriculum and apply that learning to our real world. The information on the following pages will provide a scaffold for the inquiry.
The Alberta Oil Sands affect the lives of Albertans in many ways including: economically, environmentally, politically, and scientifically. The Alberta Oil Sands are reserves of Oil located in Alberta. The Oil is not crude it is, a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay or other minerals, water and bitumen, which is a heavy and extremely viscous oil that must be treated before it can be used by refineries to produce usable fuels such as gasoline and diesel. A variety of treatment methods are currently used by oil sands producers and these treatment methods are part of the reason for the controversy surrounding the Alberta Oil Sands. This is due to the fact that the treatment methods can be harmful to the environment, and scientists are always trying to find new treatment techniques. The revenue the Oil Sands bring in and the use of this money by the government are also reasons for controversy. Students will learn about all the issues surrounding the Alberta Oil Sands and created their own opinions based on the information.

This is a large and complex project. Time management is critical. The final Project will be due ________. There will be separate due dates for certain aspects of the project, there is a timeline checklist below so you and your son/ daughter can monitor their progress. Please help your son/ daughter by encouraging them to stay on top of due dates.
Please sign below to indicate that you are aware of this project. Do not hesitate to e-mail/ call if you have any questions.

____________________________________________________
Student Name

____________________________________________________
Parent Signature

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Student Handouts for Oil Sands Sustainability Project

Debate on the Oil Sands

To what extent does the environment and progress clash in terms of the oil sands?

What questions about politics and governmental processes does the question above arise. In this project you will use your knowledge about the oil sands to create a sound argument about whether the economy or the environment is more important when debating about the Alberta oil sands. You will research the oil sands in math, science and through the media. You will use this research to take a position on the issues surrounding the Alberta Oil Sands. You will have to defend you position in a debate.


Students will research the Oil Sands and write a short but comprehensive analysis on the issues surrounding Alberta’s Oil. Students should gather this information using labs done in science, math statistics and web sources or books. Students should look back on the question poised to them at the beginning of the assignment and create a position on the questions. Students will then use their research to back up their position on the issue. This research includes articles collected from the paper as well as political cartoons. Students will create a debate using the information they collected during the research process.

By the end of October you will have researched each side of this issue. You will then choose your position on the issue in order to debate.

The format for the Debate is as follows:

Introduction – Introducing a minimum of 4 arguments for or against Oil Sands manufacturing.

Rebuttal argument # 1 – A counter to the arguments they believe the other side will create.

Rebuttal argument #2 – A counter to the arguments they believe the other side will create.


Closure- Re-state original arguments disprove the other sides point again and close with why yours arguments are more convincing.






Oil Sands Political Cartoon
A political cartoon is a satire of current events in the media. They are used to convey issues in a comedic way. Author can display their opinions and viewpoints through visual representations. In this assignment you will create your own political cartoon.

Students will spend time going through and collecting political cartoons and articles from the paper that relate to the Alberta Oil sands. These articles and cartoons can be used as research for the debate assignment as well.

Every week students will bring these cartoons and articles that relate to the oil sands to share with the class. As we examine the articles students will look at the bias and ethics of the cartoons portrayed in the media.

By the end of October you should have collected a number of political cartoons relating the Oil Sands and will have finished the research for the debate assignment. Now you must chose a position on the issue.

Once students have chosen a position regarding the Oil Sands debate they will create their own political cartoon. Your political cartoon should display your position on the issues using visuals and little words. The message that the cartoon is trying to present should be clear to the reader. You may use symbols and representations to clearly portray your viewpoint. You may use a variety of media to create your cartoon, drawing, collage, computer art, painting, and any other forms that have been approved by the teacher. You will not be graded on your art ability, but your cartoon must be neat and overall display your position on the Alberta Oil Sands issues.




Public Service Announcement

A public service announcement is a message displayed to the public to sway someone’s opinion.


Using your research on the Alberta Oil Sands and your position chosen for your Social Studies debate you will create a public service announcement relating to the Alberta Oil Sands. You may work independently or with a partner.

Your first task is to create a script (dialogue) that will present your ideas and therefore sway the public into thinking about the issue you have brought forward. In this case this is the Alberta Oil Sands. Your script should be 45 -60 seconds long and display all the information in simple terms. You will hand in a rough and good copy of the script to the teacher to grade before moving on to creating your PSA.

The Rough Copy of the PSA is due by ___________ and the Good Copy of the PSA is due by: _____________.

Once the teacher has given back your script you will create , in audio, video, pod casts, technological way of presenting.





Business Letter

Using your research you will write an informative letter to a community leader regarding the Alberta Oil Sands. Your letter will be lobbying the community leader to make changes to Oil sand legislation. You will use your position on the issue to decide to whom you are going to write the letter. You may write it to an environmental group (Green Party) giving them suggestions on how they can do more or to your Member of Parliament persuading them to make changes on legislation regarding tailing ponds. Whomever you choose you should be writing to someone to convince them of your ideas regarding Oil Sands.

You should write the letter using standard business letter format. You must include:

- Who you are (Introduce yourself)
- Who the letter is to and what part they play in the Oil Sands
- Why you are writing to them
- What your position is
- What you ideas for change are
- How you propose they institute your ideas
- Closure

The Format is as follows:

Your Street Address
City, Province, Postal Code

Month, Day, Year

Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr. Full name of recipient
Tile of recipient, Company Name
Recipient Street Address
City, Province, Postal Code

Dear Ms./Mrs./Mr. Last Name

When using this format, you do not want to indent, margins on all sides should be one-inch. Start the first paragraph by introducing yourself in a friendly way and then state the purpose of your letter. Know your audience because it’s very important that you keep their attention. Remember, you are not writing to yourself, think in term of the recipient and write passionately. Use a couple of sentences to explain the purpose, but save the detail for the body paragraph(s).

Start the body paragraph by justifying the importance of the main point. In the next few paragraphs, continue justification with background information and supporting details. Body paragraphs are where you offer solutions, advice, suggestions, or proposals. Write as many body paragraphs as you want, however, keep it short and straight to the point, you do not want to bore the reader to death or look like you’re writing a school essay.

In the closing paragraph, you should restate the purpose of the letter and, in some cases, request some type of action. Remind the reader where they can contact you and make sure to close the letter in a friendly manner.

Closing (Sincerely,)

Leave 4 spaces and Sign Your Name

Print Your Full Name
Your Title, Company Name



Reference List

Students will reference all books, websites, magazines etc. they have used for the Alberta Oil Sands Sustainability project. Any information the students have collected and not changed into their own words must be cited. They students will create a comprehensive bibliography of all their references. Anything used in Math, Science, Social Studies or Language Arts research must be included. A guide and example of proper MLA reference are on the following page.



Science and Math Performance Task

Go to link below to find both teacher information and all the student handouts for the science and math performance task.

PD Performance Task

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Exemplars for Oil Sand Sustainability Project

Business Letter

July 20, 2009
Mr. Rodney Giles
Manager, Customer Support
Inter-Office Solutions Inc.
1289 Luxor Station Rd.
Cedar Springs, IL, 34985

Dear Rodney:
This is further to our meeting of last week at which we agreed to hold a series of meetings over the next two months to review your experiences with the pilot implementation of the 1to1 Customer Relationship Management Program.
As discussed at that meeting, the objectives of our review sessions will be to:
• Review and assess the overall effectiveness of the program;
• Identify and document strengths weaknesses of the program;
• Propose customer-focused solutions to address areas of weakness;
• Develop an approach and action plan for Phase 2 of the project;
• Determine the staff members who will make up the Phase 2 Team.
As agreed, meetings will be held every second Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. until noon, and the location will alternate between our two offices, the first one to be convened here at Inter-Office on August 14, 2005. Fred Johnson of your CRM group is to act as the meeting co-ordinator and recording secretary throughout the process.
As discussed, at the end of the process, Deborah Buxton of Consultek will draft the summary report for review by the steering committee. As you requested, a copy of her c.v. has been enclosed.
I trust I have covered all of the points that we discussed. If you have any questions or would like to add anything please give me a call at 745-9878.
We look forward to seeing you at the August 14th meeting.
Sincerely,

Marilyn French
Senior Consultant

Encl

Debate

Introduction – The Alberta Oil Sands have a negative impact on the environment. Despite the positive economic benefits the Oil sands has for Alberta, I feel that we should shut down and no longer use the Oil sands. The damage to the environment is more exponential then the loss of revenue. The reasons for my stance are, the death of birds due to tailing ponds, the destruction of other animal’s habitats in places where they are digging, and the gases from the refining process that contribute to global warming.

Rebuttal argument # 1 – Alberta would still be able to create revenue from other sources like agriculture and manufacturing. We don’t have to rely on oil in this province. Money and greed seem to outweigh the impact we have on the environment in this province. The people put out of work could find jobs in the industries that replace the oil sands.

Closure- In closure the Alberta Oil Sands have a negative impact on the environment. Despite the positive economic benefits the Oil sands has for Alberta, I feel that we should shut down and no longer use the Oil sands. The damage to the environment is more exponential then the loss of revenue. The reasons for my stance are, the death of birds due to tailing ponds, the destruction of other animal’s habitats in places where they are digging, and the gases from the refining process that contribute to global warming.


PSA

Speaker 1 – Did you know that every year _____ ducks die from landing in Tailing Ponds.
Speaker 2 – The Alberta government has continually created regulations trying to stop Oil companies from destroying our environment, but it still keeps happening.
Speaker 1 – You may think there is nothing I can do to stop these companies.
Speaker 2 – But there is.
Together – You can write a letter, you can vote, you can protest.
Speaker 1 – Do you Part!
Speaker 2 – Stand up and Speak out against Oil Sands pollution.
Together – Together we can find a solution.



Political cartoon

Editorial cartoon archives. 2010. Editorial cartoon archives. 30 Nov. 2010.



This political cartoon displays the issue of tailing ponds used in Alberta Oil Sands. The media story that it is connected to is when the G20 happened in Canada and a fake lake was built to impress the delegates. The cartoon is creating a satire displaying how we hide the bad things about our country and environment when people come from other countries. The cartoon also shows how we pollute the country due to the Alberta oils sands. The ducks in the water display how many animals are killed by the tailing ponds.


References

Book (one author)
Granatstein, J. L. Canada’s War: The Politcs of the Mackenzie King Government 1939-
1945. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1990.

Book (two to three authors)
Jakobson, Roman, and Linda R. Waugh. The Sound Shape of Language. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979.

Book (more than three authors)
Lauter, Paul, et al., eds. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. 2 vols.
Boston: Houghton, 2002.

One Volume of a Multivolume Work
Proust, Marcel. Sodom and Gomorrah. Trans. John Sturrock. Ed. Christopher
Prendergast. London: Allen Lane, 2002. Vol. 4 of In Search of Lost Time. 6 vols.
1913-27.

Book by a Corporate Author
National Research Council. China and Global Change: Opportunities for Collaboration.
Washington: Natl. Acad., 1992.

Article or chapter in an edited book
Rip, Arie. “Science for the 21st Century.” The Future of the Sciences and Humanities:
Four Analytical Essays and a Critical Debate on the Future of Scholastic Endeavour.
Ed. Peter Tindemans, Alexander Verrijn-Stuart and Rob Visser. Amsterdam:
Amsterdam UP, 2002. 99-148.


Letters, Plays, Poems, Short Stories
More, Hannah. “The Black Slave Trade: A Poem.” British Women Poets of the
Romantic Era. Ed. Paula R. Feldman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. 472-82.


Encyclopedia Article
Wingert, Paul S. “Masks.” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia. 15th ed.
2002. “Oil.” Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 1999.


Journal Article*
Granatstein, J. L. “The American Influence on the Canadian Military, 1939-1963.”
Canadian Military History 2.1 (1993): 36-73.
Large, Andrew, et al. “Multimedia and Comprehension: the Relationship Among Text,
Animation, and Captions.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science
46.5 (1995): 340-347.

Magazine Article*
Kennedy, Randall. “My Race Problem – and Ours.” Atlantic Monthly May 1997: 55-66.
Contreras, Joseph, and David Noonan. “The Diet of Last Resort.” Newsweek
10 June 2002: 46-47.

Newspaper Article*
Alaton, Salem. “So, Did Thy Live Happily Ever After?” Globe and Mail [Toronto]
27 Dec. 1997: D1+.

Book Review*
Sainsbury, Mark. “No Wonder.” Rev. of A Defense of Hume on Miracles, by Robert J.
Fogelin. The Times Literary Supplement 15 Oct. 2004: 4-5.

Television Program
“Robertson Davies, in his own words.” Narr. John Neville. Life and Times. CBC
Television. 6 Dec. 1996.

Video Recording (Videocassette or DVD)
Doctor Zhivago. By Boris Pasternak. Dir. David Lean. Perf. Omar Sharif, Julie
Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Alec Guinness, and Rod Steiger. 1965.
Videocassette.
MGM/UA Home Video, 1988.


Entire Internet Site
Adbusters. 2004. Adbusters Media Foundations. 12 Nov. 2004
.

Web Page
Hallengren, Anders. “A Case of Identity: Ernest Hemingway.” Nobel e-Museum
28 Aug. 2001. 6 Feb. 2004 < http://www.nobel.se/literature/articles/hallengren/index. html >.


Article in HTML
Miles, Adrian. “Singin’ in the Rain: A Hypertextual Reading.” Postmodern Culture 8.2
(1998). Project Muse. McGill University Libraries. 02 Nov. 2003
.


Article in PDF
Hicks-Coolick, Anne, Patricia Burnside-Eaton, and Ardith Peters. “Homeless Children:
Needs and Services.” Child and Youth Care Forum 32.4 (2003): 197-210. Kluwer
Online. McGill University Libraries. 12 Feb. 2004 .
Tolson, Nancy. “Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, Librarians, and
Booksellers in the Promotion of African American Children’s Literature.” African
American Review 32 (1998): 9-16. JSTOR. McGill University Libraries. 12 Oct.
2003 .

E- book
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. London, 1609. Early English Books Online.
McGill University Libraries. 13 Jan. 2004 .

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Rubrics and Assessment for Oil Sands Sustainability Project

The following is the link for the PSA, Debate, Business letter, and Political Cartoon Rubrics.




The following link contains the rubrics and marking schemes for the science and math performance task on pages 28-30

Here

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