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Overview:
Students should recognize that changes to the environment in one place can often affect other, distant places. To introduce and reinforce this concept, students will read and analyze several articles describing consequences of the 1986 explosion and fire at a nuclear power plant in Chornobyl, Ukraine, a country which at that time was part of the Soviet Union. Students will then create a map showing which countries were affected by this disaster and how they were affected.
Connections to the Curriculum:
Geography, earth science, environmental science
Connections to the National Geography Standards:
Standard 14: "How human actions modify the physical environment"
Time:
One to two hours
Materials Required:
- Print or online news articles about the Chornobyl nuclear accident
- Blank Xpeditions outline maps of Europe, one for each student
- Atlas or map that shows physical features of Europe
- Globe
Objectives:
Students will
- think about the effects of a nuclear accident;
- learn about the nuclear accident at Chornobyl, Ukraine, and the area it affected; and
- think about how the results might have been different given different geographic conditions.
Geographic Skills:
Asking Geographic Questions
Answering Geographic Questions
Analyzing Geographic Information
S u g g e s t e d P r o c e d u r e
Opening:
Introduce a hypothetical situation in which a nuclear power plant in a neighboring country has just exploded and released radioactive material into the atmosphere. Ask students if this knowledge would keep them from lying on a beach, drinking water, playing in the rain, or enjoying a glass of milk. Let students discuss these questions and speculate about the risks of exposure to radioactive materials. Remind them that they encounter many natural environmental risks every day (such as exposure to sunlight). Based on what they know or have heard, do they think the risk of exposure to radiation from a nuclear accident is greater than or less than other environmental risks? How might the answer depend on where you live, where the plant is located, safety precautions at the plant, or other factors?
Development:
Explain to students that an explosion and release of radioactive contaminants did indeed take place at Chornobyl in Eastern Europe more than a decade ago. Environmental hazards from this event still exist in some locations, and many people exposed to radiation from Chornobyl have died or will die prematurely as a result.
Read and discuss some or all of the following articles (some are available only online; others only in print) about Chornobyl with your students:
National Geographic Magazine: Half Life—The Lethal Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste
National Geographic News: Nuclear Waste Site Managers Seek "Keep Out" Tactics Good for 10,000 Years
National Geographic News: Radioactive Devices Found in Remote Caucasus
National Geographic News: Web Map Shows Nuclear Waste Shipping Routes
"Chornobyl—One Year After," National Geographic Magazine, May 1987
"Living with the Monster—Chornobyl," National Geographic Magazine, August 1994
"More Fallout From Chornobyl," Time, May 19, 1986
"Ten Years of the Chornobyl Era," Scientific American, April, 1996
On their outline maps of Europe, have students color and label the places that are mentioned in each article. Then have them shade the area that was affected by the radioactive plume. This shaded area should extend to the northeast from Chornobyl over Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Some areas were more greatly affected because rain washed radioactive material from the atmosphere to the ground.
Ask students to add a key to their maps. Have them create symbols that identify
- human effects (deaths, canceled visits, evacuation, early school dismissals);
- livestock effects (reindeer, sheep, and cattle with elevated radiation levels, contaminated grazing land); and
- vegetable and fruit contamination.
Discuss patterns revealed by the symbols on the students' maps. Which countries experienced the most detrimental effects? Identify chains of events that took place after the accident. For example, the initial radiation cloud blew over vegetable fields. When radiation levels in the vegetables were found to be too high, farmers lost crop revenue, and there were vegetable shortages in the markets. Consumers probably paid more to buy the same product grown in unaffected regions. In some cases contaminated products still found their way to market and were eaten, increasing people's health risks.
Have a class discussion about how this incident affected other countries. Focus on student maps as you address these questions:
- Which countries and bodies of water were affected?
- How were these places affected?
- How was daily life altered?
- How far from Chornobyl is the most distant country that experienced elevated radiation levels?
- What environmental changes resulted near Chornobyl?
- What environmental changes occurred far from Chornobyl?
- How much time must pass before places affected by the accident have returned to their pre-accident state?
Closing:
Discuss the following points with students:
- Wind can be a carrier of pollutants.
- Rain can also affect the transportation and concentration of airborne pollutants.
- Wind and rain can spread the effects of a disaster over a large area.
Suggested Student Assessment:
Using the maps, identify countries and major cities that would have been affected if the wind had been blowing toward the south and west. How would these areas have been affected? Are there any natural physical barriers (such as mountain ranges) that could have changed the path or the effects of the radiation?
Extending the Lesson:
- Conduct a search online to learn the latest effects of the Chornobyl accident.
- Have students speculate on the reaction of governments and their citizens if news of the incident had been shared immediately instead of several days afterward.
- Analyze the effects of airborne emissions from a local factory, coal-burning plant, or nuclear power plant.
Nicole Sweet of East Valley Middle School in Spokane, Washington, contributed classroom ideas for Standard 14.
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