TEACHER’S MANUAL Oilfield Safety PowerPoint Presentation – Michael4Safety.org TO THE TEACHER: This PowerPoint presentation on oil field safety is geared toward elementary school students, primarily grades K-4. Please note that the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board (OERB) offers a superb video on oil field safety that is available for free to all educators and is suitable for all students, particularly junior high and high school. For more information, go to www.oerb.com and click on the “education” link. Michael4safety.org also offers a free activity and coloring book with a teacher’s curriculum on its website, as well as a poster and pamphlet. You are strongly urged to run through the PowerPoint presentation a few times to familiarize yourself with it. The slide show is in two versions – one which runs automatically, and one set up to run each element only on your mouse or space bar click. The former is excellent for familiarizing yourself with the program. PROGRAM PURPOSE: The presentation’s purpose is to educate children about the dangers of playing on or hanging around, or even being in close proximity to oilfield equipment. PROGRAM FORMAT: The program is a PowerPoint slide show. It is formatted so that if the teacher wishes, they can lead the class in reading each slide aloud. PROGRAM MESSAGE: The program’s message can best be summed up in the message on the last slide: “Stay away, Stay alive.” The goal is to educate children regarding common oilfield equipment, and the extremely high danger such equipment poses. The bottom line: Under no circumstances should children go anywhere near this equipment. It might look like fun, but it can be deadly. The oilfield site that looks like a playground could become their grave. WHO WAS MICHAEL? All students will be very curious about Michael and whether or not he was a real boy. Please stress to them that the story of Michael is real. Michael’s parents started the Michael4Safety organization in the hopes of preventing more tragedies like the one that claimed their son.
SLIDE 1: This slide can be used for focusing, making sure the screen and projector are set up properly, etc. Teachers are also encouraged to give a short introduction while this slide is on, explaining the overall message of the program. The idea is to actually get a dialogue going between the students and the presenter which can continue through the slides. Possible questions could be: 1) Would you stick your finger in a light socket? Why not? 2) Would you drink something marked “poison”? Why not? 3) Would you play about a bomb that could go off at any moment? Why not? Conclusion for students: Playing around oilfield sites is just like doing any of those things. We’re going to see a show about the dangers of these sites, and what you can do to protect yourself.
SLIDE 2: This slide features two elements – the picture and the caption. Again, the teacher should emphasize to the children that Michael is not a fictional character. He was a real, live, Oklahoma boy.
SLIDE 3: This slide features 3 elements: the picture, the top text, and the letter. Again, teachers are encouraged to read the letter aloud with the class.
SLIDE 4: This slide features two elements: the red text, and the article. It is not necessary to read the article all the way through. The headline and the first paragraph could suffice, as Slide 6 has what happened to Michael.
SLIDE 5: This slide features two elements: “What,” and “Happened.”
SLIDE 6: This slide features letters that come in individually (automatic – no mouse click or space bar needed for the animation) to form the top sentence, the photo, and the sentence in red. The sentence is in red to give it the maximum impact. Teachers can pause after bringing up the top sentence and the photo and ask the class, “What do you think happened to Michael?”
SLIDE 7: This slide features four elements: 1) The photo, 2) “OIL FIELD EQUIPMENT”, 3) “LISTEN”, 4) “LEARN”, 5) “LIVE” The elements are fairly self-explanatory: 1) Listen – to what they are about to hear about oilfield equipment 2) Learn – don’t just hear what is being said, take it to heart 3) Live – “listening and learning” can make the difference between life or death.
SLIDE 8: This slide features 4 elements: 1) the photo, 2) The top paragraph, 3) the bottom paragraph, 4) the middle paragraph (in red). Again, teachers may find it effective to have the children read this aloud with them.
SLIDE 9: This slide features six elements: 1) photo, 2) “SLUSH”, 3) “PIT” , 4) “This is a slush pit” , 5) yellow oval, 6) paragraph. It is important to stress that the contents of the slush pit can be very much like quicksand, and it can be impossible to get out by yourself if you fall in.
SLIDE 10: This slide features 4 elements: 1) “FRAC” (pronounced “frack”, 2) “TANK” , 3) photo, 4) paragraph. It is important for children to know that workers at a site do not work around or on the frac tank without the proper protective and breathing equipment.
SLIDE 11 – This slide features 5 elements: 1 – 4) “PUMP JACKS” and 5) photo. This slide is merely a set up for the next slide – which features the pertinent information
SLIDE 12: This slide features three elements: 1) photo, 2) right hand text, 3) text under photo It is very important to stress that pump jacks can come on very suddenly with no warning at all. Children have been known to dare each other to climb on – never realizing they could be crushed in an instant. A boy in Moore, Oklahoma was killed in this way while showing off in front of friends.
SLIDE 13: This slide features 4 elements: 1) photo, 2) “PIPELINES”, 3) Bottom paragraph, 4) Left-hand text in red It is important to stress here that there can be a leak and you might not smell it. For instance, natural gas really has no odor as such. The odor one normally associates with natural gas is added. If the pipeline is carrying unprocessed gas, there might not be an odor. There was a case in which some boys put a cigarette lighter by a pipeline leak. It exploded and they were killed. In another case, a woman driving to alert authorities of the leak drove her pickup truck too close to it – the vehicle’s spark plugs set it off and she burned to death.
SLIDE 14: This slide features 6 elements: 1) photo, 2) “STORAGE”, 3) “TANKS”, 4) top left hand paragraph, 5) bottom left hand paragraph, 6) paragraph in black-below photo. The teacher can tell the rest of the story of Michael at this point. Adults looking for Michael found him, but it was too late. His dad, uncle and neighbor tried desperately to revive him by giving him CPR. All three men became violently ill from the tank’s fumes. The ambulance arrived with the mother in the vehicle and they took Michael to the hospital, but it was too late. He died from asphyxiation.
SLIDE 15: This slide features 4 elements: 1) photo, 2) left caption in red, 3) oval, 4) bottom paragraph It is very important to stress that these tanks are filled with very dangerous material. Most such tanks contain hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs in low concentrations. It doesn’t take that much to make a lethal dose, and there is no warning in that concentration, because death occurs before the brain can even register the smell.
SLIDE 16 – This slide features three elements: 1) photo, 2) “STAY AWAY”, 3) “STAY ALIVE”
It is not uncommon in Oklahoma for children to see adults use storage tanks as deer stands, or to conduct other hunting activity around oil field equipment. The educator needs to stress that this is literally risking death. One wrong spark, one wayward bullet, and people will die.