Oil Companies vs. The Rainforests Teaching Resource Packet

A Teaching Resource Packet on Indigenous Rights and "Development" includes book, DVD and Role Play Guide

List Price: $140.00
Sale Price: $96.00

This is an extraordinary collection of teaching materials on the oil industry's impact on people and the environment, using the example of the fight of the Huaorani Indians to defend their culture and the environment in Ecuador's Oriente. These materials can be used in World Cultures, Economics, Environmental Science, American Studies or International Studies courses in grades 5-12.

The package includes:

Role Play and Other Lessons: A Jungle is a Jungle is a Jungle... Or is it? Lessons for use with the Trinkets and Beads video, including a role play on oil and the Huaorani Indians in the Ecuadorian Rainforest by Bill Bigelow. Through the role play, students confront the choices faced by the actual participants in this ongoing drama. In the role play, students portray five groups: Huaorani Indians, U.S.-base Maxus Oil Company representatives, Ecuadorian environmentalists, evangelical missionaries, and poor settlers, or "colonists." The teacher plays the Ecuadorian president, who presents a plan for "development" of the Oriente - eastern Ecuador, home to the Huaorani and numerous other indigenous groups, as well as to more bio-diversity than just about any other place on earth.  It's this plan that is the focus of student debate and alliance-building, as different groups defend their interests and discover where those interests either intersect or clash with those of other social groups.

DVD: Trinkets and Beads by Christopher Walker. This powerful 52 minute video patches together indelible images of the ecological and social devastation of oil "development" with quotes of great insight as well as great idiocy. The Huaorani leader Poi pleads for solidarity with the rainforest: "We must all be concerned because this is the heart of the world and here we can breathe." An oil company consultant insists that the rainforest is a myth, a National Geographic fiction: "The jungle is the jungle is the jungle sort of thing."

Book: Savages by Joe Kane. The savagery described in Kane's narrative is a complex tapestry that includes oil-thirsty "developed" economies, transnational oil companies, arrogant missionaries, a debt-strapped Ecuadorian government, and (although also victims) impoverished, land-starved "settlers" who eagerly follow the oil companies into the rainforest wreaking further environmental havoc.

“I used this role play at the beginning of the school year. Because the role play provides such detailed yet student friendly descriptions, the students were able to clearly articulate their arguments during the debate with great depth, even those who struggled with reading. One student who barely spoke all year was on the edge of his seat making his argument during the debate. Not only did students continue talking about this role-play the rest of the year, they were also excited every time we dove into another topic in a similar fashion.” -- Elizabeth Kenyon, High School teacher, Brattleboro, Vermont

Book-274 pp., DVD-52 min, Role Play Guide