ESL Lesson 1

Oil in Our Every Day Life

Lesson Objective: To have students talk about worldwide delivery systems using planes, ships, cars, trucks, railroads and discuss what is delivered by these forms of transportation.

Open Discussion Topic:
The one thing that we collectively use every day regardless of wealth, nationality, or belief system is oil? What is made from oil that we use everyday in our lives? What transport systems (way to deliver something by road, sea or air) need gasoline, diesel or oil to keep functioning (working)? What forms of transportation use fossil fuel? What things are delivered by modern transportation systems?

Discussion Activity 1:
Anticipated problems: This discussion topic seems to be vocabulary, so think of a list of products made from oil before class to help the students along. Especially obscure items like contact lenses, paint, jet fuel etc…

What is made from oil? What products? What fuels? For example, if plastic comes up because it is made from oil just look around the room to see what is made of plastic, especially the things the students have with them in their bags, even the candy wrapper counts! Link it all together, the list of items (things) made from oil is endless, from lipstick to buttons on shirts to hospital supplies and everything in between including fertilizers and gasoline. Make a spider web of linking nouns. Start with a general material such as plastic, then link the words together bottles-pens-food packaging-straws-rulers-keyboards-hair clips etc…

Extension activity: Talk about the difference between high and low end products that increase our quality of life.

Discussion Activity 2:
Expand further by explaining the furniture in the room was brought there by a vehicle car/truck. The glass in the windows was produced in a factory, and the metal for the window frame was mined (process of removing minerals from the Earth) using a fuel driven machine to dig the earth, and that earth delivered to a factory by truck to be separated and the metal removed. Pure metal is then transported by vehicle to another factory where it is made into a window frame. Then most people drive to the store to buy the item. In the U.S. most people will have a person come to their house and install the window, which is another form of fuel usage involved in the process. You will be lucky to find one item that didn't use oil in some step from manufacture to delivery. Follow the manufacturing-delivery-consumer chain for different products.

Unit 1 Focus:
Industries that use fuel that could be negatively affected if prices go higher and stay permanently high. At first these industries will raise the price of their product, but eventually the sale price will be too high and people will stop buying.

Cruise ship industry (Tourism)
Airline industry (Tourism)
Farming industry (Plowing, Planting and Harvesting, Pesticides, Fertilizers) but this could be offset by demand increases for crops to make Ethanol and Bio-fuels.
Tire manufacturers as synthetic and natural rubber prices both rise. (Manufacturing)
Container ship companies as moving a container from A to B country will be more expensive. (Delivery)
Auto industry prices of automobiles will be high with high steel prices and high gasoline prices will deter people buying new cars. (Manufacturing)
Overnight Express delivery companies like FedEx and UPS, airline fuel prices rise the fastest of all fuels. (Delivery)

Industries that will benefit from higher fuel prices:

Natural rubber (rubber sap from a tree) producers will benefit as companies switch from expensive synthetic (man made) rubber to natural latex rubber from trees. As the price of oil rises these synthetic rubbers can be replaced with natural rubber latex as the “filler” for tires, window sealing (stops water from coming in) and conveyer belts etc… (Commodity)
Oil companies as gasoline prices rise so do profits. (Fuel)
Recyclers of plastic, metal and paper, but that cost will have to be compared to costs of shipping by container which will increase. (Commodities)
Farmers especially as corn and other oil seed crops are used for bio-fuel and ethanol. Be warned food prices will increase as corn is needed by both people and animals to eat. Now a third user is the Ethanol industry which will use a lot of extra corn. (Food Production)
Mining Industry with commodity prices rising and staying high. (Commodities)

Extension Topic: Focus on what is delivered by containers, from refrigerated cars, hazardous waste, cargo, shipping routes and vocabulary in ports and container terminals.

Group Discussion Questions: How will rising fuel prices worldwide effect business worldwide?
How will manufacturing be affected if delivery of the product is too expensive?
Can factories stay in business by producing and make profit in a regional market only?

Continue to: Glossary of Oil & Gas Terms

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ESL Lesson 1

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Oil in Our Every Day Life
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Glossary of Oil & Gas Terms
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World Crude Oil Production Forecast
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More Oil Fields will be Found
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Some Producing Oil Fields by size
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Expected Oil fields by year 2006-2010
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Future from 2010
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World Oil Consumption 2006
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OPEC Warning
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Carbon black shortages slow down mining
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