Questions for Discussion

Questions for discussion

Oil spill

Discuss the Oil spill story with another student.
Where did the oil spill happen?
About how much oil is spewing into the ocean each day?
Briefly explain the process of drilling for oil.
How did the explosion occur?
The slick is so large, it can be seen from ______.
How are they trying to control the spill?
What three adjectives would you use to describe the oil spill?
What effect has the oil spill had on local fisheries?
How can these sorts of environmental disasters be prevented? Make some suggestions.

Research the Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989. Why are comparisons being made between the Exxon Valdez spill and the one in the Gulf of Mexico?

Greek debt

What does the BtN story mainly explain?
Why have people in Greece been protesting recently?
Banks make money from the ______people pay.
Why do countries borrow money?
What can happen if a country can’t repay its loan?
If an economy goes bad in one country, how can it affect others?
Which countries are giving Greece money to help pay their debts?
What changes has the Greek government made to help the financial situation?
How have people reacted to these changes?
What do you think should happen next? Should more countries be helping Greece’s economy? Why or why not?

Test your knowledge in the online quiz.

Graphic novels

Briefly summarise the BtN Graphic novels story.
When and why did comics become popular?
Why do you think comics have maintained their popularity for so long?
Who was the first hero in comic books?
How are graphic novels different from comics?
Describe the graphic novel a group of primary school students made.
How did the kids describe the experience of making the novel?
How can graphic novels help kids with reading?
What was the most interesting fact you learnt in the Graphic novels story?
How has your thinking changed since watching the BtN story?

`Do you think graphic novels will lead to more kids reading books?’ Vote in the BtN online poll.

Snooker champ

What was the main point of the BtN story?
What did Australian Neil Robertson win recently?
How long did the snooker final take to play?
How old was Neil when he first started playing snooker competitively?
Describe Neil’s situation when he first moved to England.
What skills are needed to be a professional snooker player?
What are Neil’s two goals?
What is the aim of a snooker game?
Describe the reputation snooker has had over the years.
What was surprising about this story?

Research and create a biography of Neil Robertson using the bio-cube.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/bio_cube/

Tiwi music

Where are the Tiwi Islands?
Which sport is popular on the Tiwi Islands?
In traditional Indigenous culture, how were stories passed down from generation to generation?
What is Genevieve Campbell working on with the Tiwi people?
What did Genevieve find when she was researching Tiwi songs?
How did the Tiwi elders respond to her discovery?
Why is it difficult to translate the songs into modern Tiwi and English?
What has happened to Indigenous languages in Australia over the years?
Why is it important to preserve Indigenous language and culture?
What do you understand more clearly since watching the BtN story?

Send us a message on the BtN guestbook http://abc.net.au/btn/guestbook.html

Oil spill

Focus Questions

Discuss the Oil spill story with another student.
About how much oil is spewing into the ocean each day?
Briefly explain the process of drilling for oil.
How did the explosion occur?
Who is responsible for the clean-up of the spill?
The slick is so large, it can be seen from ______.
How are they trying to control the spill?
What three adjectives would you use to describe the oil spill?
What effect has the oil spill had on local fisheries?
How can these sorts of environmental disasters be prevented? Make some suggestions.

Oil spill

Students will explore in more detail, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Begin by asking students to look at the words below. With a partner, recall how they were used in the BtN story.

environmental responsible damage

disaster burning chemicals

spewing clean-up unemployed

Using a thesaurus or the internet, students find the synonyms for the words above.
Students can choose one or more of the following activities:

Hold a class debate or discussion based on one of the following questions:

Should laws regarding oil drilling change after this oil spill?

Can the world do without oil?

What should the penalties or consequences be for BP?

Should there be an environment tax on oil products?

Research the effects of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Use the following questions to help focus your research:
Why are birds particularly threatened by the spill?
How will the spill affect fishermen?

What is a containment dome and how does it work? Create a labelled diagram to show how it works. What other methods is BP using to stop the leaks?

Research the Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989. Why are comparisons being made between the Exxon Valdez spill and the one in the Gulf of Mexico?

8 Related Research Links
ABC Behind the News – Oil rig
http://abc.net.au/btn/story/s2735793.htm

ABC Behind the News – Reef ship
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s2876854.htm

ABC News – Oil spill set on fire to save coast
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/29/2885404.htm

ABC News – Giant oil spill reaches US shore
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/07/2893113.htm

New York Times – Tracking the oil spill interactive
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html

CBBC Newsround – Race to try to stop oil leak
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8660000/newsid_8660100/8660102.stm

BBC News – Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico: in maps and graphics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8651333.stm

National Geographic Daily News – Gulf oil spill a `dead zone in the making’?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100504-science-environment-gulf-oil-spill-dead-zone/

Graphic novels

Focus Questions

Briefly summarise the BtN Graphic novels story.
When and why did comics become popular?
Why do you think comics have maintained their popularity for so long?
Who was the first hero in comic books?
How are graphic novels different from comics?
Describe the graphic novel a group of primary school students made.
How did the kids describe the experience of making the novel?
How can graphic novels help kids with reading?
What was the most interesting fact you learnt in the Graphic novels story?
How has your thinking changed since watching the BtN story?

Graphic novels and comics

Students will learn more about graphic novels and comics by completing the following activities. Negotiate with students how many activities they will need to do.

Remember and understand

· Students think about the words `graphic’ and `novel’. Use the dictionary and internet to look for meanings, information or synonyms for the words.

Graphic / Novel

· Create a timeline that shows significant moments in the history of comics and graphic novels.

· Use a Venn diagram (two overlapping circles) to show the similarities and differences between comics and graphic novels.

Apply and Analyse

· Students will need access to a range of graphic novels for this activity. Respond to the following:
What is similar and different about the types of graphic novels?
How is dialogue presented in the graphic novels?
What are the characters doing and how is it shown?
How is action shown?

· Compare graphic novels to other forms of storytelling – novels, film and poetry. What are the similarities and differences?

· Some writers describe every detail of what a character is thinking and feeling. Others give a bare outline and let the reader fill in the gaps. What do you think are the pros and cons for each approach?

Evaluate and create

· Make a cartoon strip that captures when comics first became popular during World War II.

· Interview students and teachers about their views on using graphic novels in the classroom. Share your findings with the rest of the class. To extend the activity, write a letter to the school principal and/or teacher librarian about including a graphic novels section in the school resource centre.

· Students will create a six panel comic with six key scenes from a book they have read. They will need to think about the characters and events they are trying to portray in a few key scenes. The following website has an online tool to help them create their comic http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/index.html

8 Related Research Links
ABC Stateline – Graphic novels star at the State library
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/04/23/2881697.htm

Oz Comics – Graphic novels in the classroom
http://www.ozcomics.com/Reading-Comics/Graphic-Novels-in-Schools/graphicnovelsintheclassroom.html

Education World – Graphic novels
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev105.shtml

BtN: Episode 11 Transcripts 11/05/10

On this week's Behind the News:

· The battle to stop a huge oil spill that's threatening wildlife

· Why there's anger in Greece - a country that's run out of money

· And how comic books are turning the page from superheroes to real life stories.

Hi I'm Nathan Bazley welcome to Behind the News.

Also on the show today we meet an Australian who's the new world champ in a sport that once had a bit of a seedy image.

Those items later but first let's catch up with the headlines.

The Wire

Iceland's erupting volcano is causing more travel chaos in Europe.

19 airports in Spain were shut with hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed.

In Iceland, the ash is also causing havoc with face masks the only protection for many in this town near the glacier.

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A couple of weeks ago BtN reported on the planned NAPLAN tests for school students and how teachers were unhappy about them.

The tests measure how kids are going in reading, writing, spelling and maths but teachers were worried the results could be used to compare schools unfairly - and the teachers said they wouldn't give the tests.

Well now the teachers have changed their minds and the NAPLAN tests will go ahead as planned.

That's because the government agreed to consult the teachers about the use of the test results after this year.

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16-year-old sailor Jessica Watson is due to arrive back in Australia soon after attempting to be the youngest person to sail around the world single-handed.

But she'll be greeted by some bad news when she sets foot on dry land.

Some experts are now casting doubt over whether her attempt is valid. They say she hasn't sailed the correct distance above the equator

Oil Spill

Reporter: Nathan Bazley

INTRO: Just two weeks ago we told you about a ship that had hit the Great Barrier Reef creating fears of an oil spill off the QLD coast.

Well as it turns out the United States is now being threatened with a disaster thousands of times worse.

It involves an oil rig and an explosion that killed 11 people.

Here's what's happened so far.

It started as one big explosion but could finish as the worst environmental disaster America has faced.

On April 22nd the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded 80ks off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico

11 workers were killed in the blast and soon the whole rig collapsed into the ocean.

But that wasn't the end to the emergency. In some ways it was just the beginning.

Because while the fire was now out, down one and a half kms below the surface the rig's pipe was still spewing oil.

At an alarming rate of 800,000 litres a day.

DAVID KENNEDY, NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE: I'm frightened.

Crude oil is a valuable liquid and fuel companies will go almost anywhere to get it.

Sometimes it's trapped more than a thousand metres beneath the surface of the ocean and that's where these huge rigs come in.

They are designed to send down drills thousands of metres to find pockets of oil.

The Deepwater Horizon rig was being operated by fuel company BP and it was actually going deeper than any rig had gone before.

NATHAN BAZLEY: But drilling is a dangerous business because the oil underground is under a huge amount of pressure.

That's why you would have seen it shown like this in old movies when they found some.

Drilling rigs are meant to have equipment that stops the pressure getting out of control but it looks like it failed and natural gas was pushed right up to the platform.

That's when the explosion took place.

And now that the platform has been destroyed there is nothing stopping the oil underground from spewing straight into the ocean.

The clean-up effort will be absolutely huge and BP is responsible.

First up they had to stop the leak underwater so they tried robot subs.

Unfortunately they failed. So now they're looking at other options like huge metal containers that could be put over the leak so that the oil could be pumped safely to the surface.

And up on the surface booms are being put up anywhere they can fit them to hopefully stop the spreading oil slick once it hits them.

They've also tried burning bits of oil floating on the water and planes have been dropping huge amounts of chemicals that will hopefully break the slick up so it can do less damage.

If that doesn't work, BP will have to drill another hole into the oil well to pump mud in and hopefully block it off.

But this could take three months and at 800,000 litres a day that's a lot of oil.

Up top, everyone knows this could turn out to be a MASSIVE problem for the environment.

The slick can be seen from space and once it hits land it could have a devastating effect.

That's left everyone fearing what might happen once the full force of the slick hits.

Fisheries have been shut down, leaving heaps of locals unemployed and already animals in the wild might be suffering.

But only time will tell if the President's correct - whether this really could be the worst they've ever seen.

Greek Debt

Reporter: Sarah Larsen

INTRO: There's another story also grabbing the headlines. The problem’s in Greece.

We're pretty used to seeing what happens when a business goes broke.

People lose their jobs and the economy suffers.