Problem-Based Learning – Fracking and the Marcellus Shale

The Earth System Science (ESS) module Fracking – Marcellus Shale from the Earth System Science Education Alliance (ESSEA) is a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activity designed to introduce your students to a current environmental issue and explore it using ESS’s Earth System Science Analysis (ESSA).  The ESSA approach asks students to examine how the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere 1) are impacted by the issue; 2) affect the issue; and 3) affect each other.

The module contains an extensive list of high quality resources pertaining to fracking along with a compilation of suggested activities appropriate for a range of learners, from beginners to advanced.

To learn more about using ESS modules in the K-12 classroom, click here.

If you have used this resource with your students, please leave a comment!

Hydraulic Fracturing Poster from Department of Energy

This educational poster (pdf) from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy diagrams the process of hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas from deep beneath the earth. According to their website, hard copies of this poster are available for educators.

EIA’s New Interactive Maps: State Energy Portal

According to the the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), its state energy portal is “the most comprehensive, dynamic, and interactive view of the U.S. government’s national and state energy data and information currently available to the public.”

The profile/map for NC can be found here. By clicking on the “Layers/Legend” tab and selecting one of five available base maps, educators can customize maps and charts for classroom use. Maps can be created to show availability of energy sources, transmission lines, major power plants as well as renewable energy potential for North Carolina.  Electricity, nuclear, natural gas and renewable energy profiles for the state are also available along with supporting data tables in Microsoft Excel. Also, by clicking on a specific power plant, the portal links users directly to that plant’s data in EIA’s electricity data browser (see corresponding blog post).

This tool also shows how NC ranks in comparison to the other 49 states in terms of energy production, consumption, prices for electricity and natural gas, and carbon dioxide emissions.

Methane Hydrate Resources from NETL and USGS

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)  has an information portal for the National Methane Hydrate R&D Program.  There is a link to 24 page primer titled, Energy Resource Potential for Methane Hydrate (pdf) and a description of all active and completed research projects.

The USGS’s Woods Hole Science Center also has an extensive page devoted to gas hydrates. Here you can learn about The U.S. Geological Survey Gas Hydrates Project, learn about climate-hydrate interactions, and find links to recent scientific publications and multi-media coverage.

(Image: USGS)

Methane Hydrate Resources

Methane hydrates have been in the news lately after Japan announced in March that it had extracted natural gas from deep in the ocean floor!  The source of the natural gas was methane hydrates, or methane molecules trapped in ice crystals.  In reading a recent National Geographic article, I learned that “methane hydrates buried beneath the seafloor on continental shelves and under the Arctic permafrost are likely the world’s largest store of carbon-based fuel. The figure often cited, 700,000 trillion cubic feet of methane trapped in hydrates, is a staggering sum that would exceed the energy content of all oil, coal, and other natural gas reserves known on Earth.”  Wow.

Below are links to resources about methane hydrates:

National Geographic: Pictures: Unlocking Icy Methane Hydrates, a Vast Energy Store, an excellent collection of photos with accompanying narrative

NASA: Methane: A Scientific Journey from Obscurity to Climate Super-Stardom

Department of Energy: Methane Hydrates

The Green Grok: Methane Hydrates: The Next Natural Gas Boom?

ChokePoint US: Energy Used in the Water Cycle

I recently learned about a project from Circle of Blue called ChokePoint: US, a four-month reporting project where journalists set out to better understand what is occurring in the places where rising energy demand collides with diminishing supplies of fresh water.  Check out the website for featured stories, multimedia and infographics about hydropower, coal, oil, tar sands, fracking, and renewables.

Check out the interactive infographic titled: Energy Used in the Water Cycle that details the amount of electricity that is needed to transport, distribute and treat the water we use in our homes and businesses as well as the industrial and agricultural sectors.  While electricity plays a role in many steps of this water cycle, most electricity use occurs with the end users – customers who heat water to bathe, cook, etc.

For those of you who take your students on tours of water treatment plants or waste water treatment plants, consider asking the plant operators to discuss the plant’s use of electricity to pump, move and treat water.

 

Electricity data browser from EIA

The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently posted an electricity data browser to show generation, consumption, fossil fuel receipts, stockpiles, retail sales, and electricity prices. The data appear on an interactive web page and are updated each month; annual, quarterly and monthly data are available from 2001-2011. All images and datasets are available for download.  Furthermore, data sets can be filtered by fuel type, geographic region or state, or energy sector, enabling you to customize data sets and graphs for your state or region.

I encourage you to check out this tool to get up to date US energy data and to create customized graphs for use in the classroom. For example, this tool can be used to quickly get data and corresponding graphs to answer a variety of questions such as:

How much of NC’s electricity generation comes from biomass? natural gas? coal?

How does NC’s consumption of biomass compare the US as a whole?

How has NC’s consumption of natural gas changed since 2001?

Which region of the US is generating the most electricity from natural gas?

Burn: An Energy Journal

BURN: An Energy Journal is the flagship program of The Public Radio Energy Project and winner of the 2012 American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) Kavli Science Journalism Award for their documentary special titled Particles: Nuclear Power After Fukushima (54 minutes in 3 segments) that examines the future of nuclear power one year after the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan..

Two other documentaries are available, The Hunt for Oil: Risks  and Rewards and The Power of One a two hour special that includes segments on fracking in Pennsylvania, drilling for oil in the Arctic and the quest to build better batteries.

The SWITCH Energy Project

In November, I attended the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting in Charlotte, NC and I heard geologist Dr. Scott Tinker discuss his new energy documentary Switch, which has evolved into a larger project, the SWITCH Energy Project, consisting of a documentary film, video excerpts and an education program.

While I haven’t seen the film yet, it promises to be an “agenda-free documentary, embraced across political lines.” According to the website, the goal in making this documentary was “not to advocate for one technology over another, not to suggest how the transition should happen — but to try to determine how it actually would happen, based on scientifically-sound investigation and the practical realities of the world of energy as we discovered them.”

A two-minute trailer is available for viewing and approximately 300 short videos, organized by resource and topic are also available!  Video-based lesson plans, co-developed by the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) are coming soon.

If you get a chance to see the film and/or utilize the short videos, please leave a comment about this resource.

Oil Shale Resources and Fact Sheets

The US Department of Energy (DOE) states on its fossil energy website that “an objective look at [alternatives to petroleum] points to the Nation’s untapped oil shale as a strategically located, long-term source of reliable, affordable, and secure oil.” A task force to develop a program and make recommendations to advance the commercialization of the United States’ strategic unconventional fuel resources, including oil shale was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  The Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force website contains links to educational posters and fact sheets  titled Oil Shale Resources, Oil Shale Economics, Oil Shale and the Environment and Oil Shale Water Resources prepared by the Department of Energy’s Office of Petroleum Reserves.

According to the USGS, the Eocene Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming contains the largest oil shale deposits in the world and the DOE estimates that U.S. oil shale resources amount to more than 2 trillion barrels.  This energy source is at the bottom of the Resource Triangle because historically it has been cost prohibitive to develop this resource and the associated technology given the lower cost of petroleum.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is preparing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for Oil Shale and Tar Sands resources on lands administered by the BLM in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Their online center for public information contains an About Oil Shale page with general information as well as photos.