Students benefit from teacher’s workshop learning!

Angela Sanson teaches biology, physics, and anatomy/physiology at McDonald High School in McDonald, Ohio. Samson incorporated the information she learned during the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) workshop into the curriculum for her tenth grade biology classes. State learning standards for Biology include the flow of energy between organisms and the cycling of matter is taught. Samson used the Formation activities to reinforce how fossil fuels are formed and the role that biotic materials play in that process.

It’s a Gas: “My students had fun combining all of the different materials in the soda bottle, and watching the changes in the balloon over time. The activity helped me to teach the students about biogenesis, bacterial fermentation, and the role of both in the formation of hydrocarbons.”

Geologic Time: “This helped students understand how conditions needed to be over many millions of years for the fossil fuels to have formed.”

Geologic Puzzle: “This activity was helpful because students really don’t think about how the fossil fuels formed deep within the earth—they just know they are there and it took a long time for them to form. This activity combined with the Geologic Time activity reinforces the idea that certain things had to happen over millions of years to make the fossil fuels and shows how valuable our limited supply of these fuels is today.”