Reading, Writing And Fracking? What The Oil Industry Teaches Oklahoma Students
It's a Saturday at Choctaw High School, but for hundreds of Oklahoma teachers, there's a training class in session. Carrie Miller-DeBoer perches atop a stool monitoring a pair of soda bottles linked with a small length of thin plastic tubing created to mimic enhanced oil recovery, while teaching chimstry fundamentals.
"I love it and my students will be so excited," she says.
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Eben Mccue
DeBoer is among 14,000 teachers in Oklahoma being trained to instruct a K through 12 education curriculum funded by the oil and gas industry. The lesson plans, created by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, have been used in Kansas, and the overall model has been pitched to at least five other states.
The program centers on teaching math and science through oil-centric lessons and labs. That includes things like calculating the mileage of tanker trucks, or the slope of pipelines.
"Half of our budget is restoration, half is education," says Dara McBee, communications director with the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board.
Since the 1990s, the energy board – funded by oil and gas taxes – has spent $40 million on the education program. But an investigation by the Center for Public Integrityand StateImpact Oklahoma, a collaboration of local NPR member stations, reveals there's a blurry line between industry promotion and education.
Documents show educators had some role in creating the plans, but it's unclear how the lessons are written and updated each year. The board's education director does not have a background in education or science.
Here are just a few of those lessons:
Hydraulic Fracturing:
Oklahoma Energy Resources Board YouTube
Seismic Exploration:Here's How The Oil Industry Is Influencing Science Lessons In Public Schools : NPR:
