Burgettstown students get hands-on look at the natural gas industry
Courtesy of Burgettstown Area School District
Students rotate through six lab stations in the Burgettstown gymnasium.
Eighth-grader Brianna Pennington looks at a core sample of rock layers.
BURGETTSTOWN – Sixth- and eighth-graders at Burgettstown Area Middle School got the chance to learn hands-on about the natural gas industry recently.
The Oilfield Energy Center brought its traveling Mobile Oilfield Learning Unit to the school to teach students about geology, engineering, physics, chemistry, history and environmental studies. The unit is made up of six learning stations to which students travel around in pairs. The Feb. 26 visit was the first time the unit has visited a school in Pennsylvania.
Doris Tomas, education director for the Texas-based Oilfield Energy Center, said this is the third MOLU that has been created and this one was specifically requested for Pennsylvania because of all the work in the natural gas industry that is taking place in the state. She said all of the lessons are tied to national education standards.
Tomas said she gets great feedback from teachers about the unit.
“They love how it is hands-on for students,” she said.
That was the case in Burgettstown.
Eighth-grader Jacob Stroud said the unit was pretty neat. He especially liked the hands-on activities, including using a crane to pick up a ball and put it in pipes.
“It gave us ideas about what some of us will have as jobs,” Stroud said.
Principal Brian Fadden said that was the whole purpose of bringing the unit to the school. Throughout the year, the school has a variety of activities to introduce students to different types of careers – and the mobile unit gave them ideas for jobs they could get in this area.
“It’s another tool in our tool shed for careers,” Fadden said.
He said the students were definitely engaged in and enjoyed the activities and communicated with each other well as they were going through the unit.
“It was a really great experience for students and teachers,” Fadden said.
Tim Tropeck, who teaches earth and space science to eighth-graders, said the mobile unit tied into what he teaches in class as well.
The organizers had core samples and talked about sedimentary rock and shale, and what they see as they drill down, Tropeck said.
“I talk about the geological time scale and it ties in,” he said. “They drill down to ancient environments.”