A new online educational resource to help teach pupils about Piper Alpha has been launched prior to the 25th anniversary of the disaster.
First Minister Alex Salmond announced the arrival of the Piper Alpha learning community designed by Education Scotland for teachers.
Accessed via the teachers’ intranet, it is an online space where teachers can share ideas and discuss approaches to including the Piper Alpha disaster in lessons.
The site features interviews with survivors, news content and excerpts from the documentary Fire In The Night.
Mr Salmond said: “Piper Alpha remains the world’s worst offshore platform disaster, taking the lives of 167 people. No Scot who is old enough will ever forget hearing the news and seeing the horrifying images from that night in July 1988.
“Almost 25 years on, our first obligation to the men who died in the Piper Alpha tragedy remains ensuring a disaster like this is never allowed to happen again.
“Safety in the oil and gas industry has improved massively since the recommendations made in the Cullen report, but we owe it to the memory of those who were lost to continue to make safety absolutely the first priority for workers offshore.
“The 25th anniversary has rightly had a substantial emphasis in making sure that the new generation of offshore workers understand the importance of Piper Alpha in creating the current offshore safety regime. However, given that the oil industry will be with us for the next half century and more, we also have a responsibility to ensure that new generations of Scots understand the significance of the world’s worst offshore disaster.
“This new resource for schools will help ensure that this can happen.”
The First Minister will attend the remembrance and rededication service on Saturday at the North Sea Memorial in Aberdeen’s Hazlehead Park where the Scottish Government has donated £100,000 for the restoration and maintenance of the garden.