You will be completing 1 or 2 product assignments to give you experience in some of the activities that are part of this career. Follow the steps below to complete your experience. Click the arrow buttons to move forward/backward or use the arrows on your keyboard.
1. Watch the Goal, Role, Audience, & Situation video.
2. Review the vocabulary needed to help you complete the project.
3. Review the research resources needed to help you complete the project.
4. Choose a product to begin work on, review the details, and complete the design process.
5. Upload your finished product assignment into the system.
Goal: As a Hazmat Technician, your goal is to help identify, remove and dispose of hazardous materials.
Role: Your role as a Hazmat Technician for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources is to help clean up and remove oil from the coast of Louisiana impacted by an oil spill from a large oil tanker.
Audience: Your audience will be the other Hazmat Technicians with whom you are working, local volunteers, and the assisting U.S. Coast Guard helping to clean-up the area surrounding Jefferson Parish coastline.
Situation: A major oil spill impacted the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This oil spill still impacts the regional coast line. This oil needs to be taken care of so that the wildlife is not killed and the environment around the coast is not damaged. The oil spill was not reported until the currents in the gulf started bringing the oil very close to shore and has been first identified 10 miles from the shoreline.
Oil spills can seriously affect the marine environment both as a result of physical smothering and toxic effects. Oil spilled into the water often reaches the shore by winds and currents. Oil may strand at the high tide line, leaving black lines or globs of oil on the beach as the tide recedes. Thick layers of oil may coat rocks, beaches, or plants.
Shore creatures that are harmed by oil are either injured or killed outright. Some creatures that can hide may survive oiling, such as snails or clams that can withdraw into their shells. These animals may take in toxic parts of the oil into their bodies through eating contaminated food. Birds that feed along the shoreline may get oil on their feathers, causing them to lose their ability to keep themselves warm, and will likely die.
The following terms and definitions may be helpful for your work:
Accumulation - a mass or quantity of something that has gradually gathered or been acquired
Fossil Fuels - sources, including oil, coal and natural gas, are non-renewable resources that formed when prehistoric plants and animals died and were gradually buried by layers of rock.
Marine Ecosystems - aquatic environments with high levels of dissolved salt. These include the open ocean, the deep-sea ocean, and coastal marine ecosystems, each of which have different physical and biological characteristics
Petroleum - a liquid mixture of hydrocarbons that is present in certain rock strata and can be extracted and refined to produce fuels including gasoline, kerosene, and diesel oil; oil.
Rehabilitation - the action of restoring something that has been damaged to its former condition
Restoration - bringing back to a former position or condition
The following resources may be helpful for your work:
Method of Clean-Up Presentation | Brochure - Helping Oiled Birds Survive: |
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The local government has asked for your help in determining the best methods for minimizing the impact of the oil spill as it moves closer to the shoreline. Select 2-3 methods that you are encouraging the local government to support; Explain what they are and how they work |
Your task is to create a brochure that can be distributed to the general public helping them understand the process of helping oiled birds survive. |
Method of Clean-Up Presentation - The local government has asked for your help in determining the best methods for minimizing the impact of the oil spill as it moves closer to the shoreline. Your decisions should be based upon the oil being 10 miles out to sea, but moving toward the shoreline with some of the oil already getting close to shore.
You will want to review the 10 potential methods for cleaning up an oil spill to minimize damage to the environment and to the wildlife below. At the bottom of the article it will provide suggestions based upon the location of the oil to the shore.
Idea for Oil Clean up Spills at Sea
Select 2-3 methods that you are encouraging the local government to support;
Explain what they are and how they work;
How will they impact the environment and creatures;
Why have you made these recommendations; and
Include pictures or video of these processes in action
Brochure - Helping Oiled Birds Survive: Your task is to create a brochure that can be distributed to the general public helping them understand the process of helping oiled birds survive. They need to understand that this is a serious situation and not something they should do on their own. The brochure should cover important points necessary to help the birds survive and recover. Be sure to encourage people to call the proper agency immediately if they find an oiled bird.
The following resources may be helpful: