Measuring Disaster

The BP Oil Spill, 2010

• The Gulf oil spill is recognized as the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Within days of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, remote underwater cameras revealed the BP pipe was leaking oil and gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana. By the time the well was capped on July 15, 2010 (87 days later), an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf.

» From http://ocean.si.edu/gulf-oil-spill

•4.9 million barrels!!!!!!!

What is a barrel?

• A barrel is 42 gallons.

• If a gallon was in the shape of a cube, what would its dimensions be?

• (fact, a gallon is 231 cubic inches)

Let’s each build a cubic gallon.

Let’s use our cubic gallons to make a rectangular prism barrel.

Your big challenge

• If we created a prism whose base was the size of a football field and filled it with all the oil from the BP oil spill, how tall would it be?

• A story is typically 10 ft. How many stories high would the oil go?