In his speech this last week President Obama addressed the oil spill in the gulf mentioning that his eleven year old daughter Malia had asked him that morning, "Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?"  Her question echoes that of many children and adults throughout the world, and also raises the issue of how to talk to children about disasters like the oil spill.  I have blogged about the issue of appropriate ways and times to talk to children about climate change a bit in the past .  Similar to climate change the oil spill is a scary, but almost unavoidable topic because of the vast coverage by the media.  Recently the National Wildlife Federation put out an article, How to Talk with Kids About the Gulf Oil Spill .  It includes simple, clear tips that are really applicable to a discussion about any environmental issue of concern.  If you are looking for some activities to do in the classroom the following video describes one activity found on the NASA SciFiles website .  Although the program has been retired, the educator guides are still available to download and this activity is from the Case of the Ocean Odyssey.