Mining Resources

Did you know that August 27 is "It's Oil Day"? It marks the date in 1859 when Edwin Drake hit oil in the Pennsylvania town of Titusville. What Drake discovered started an oil boom and a new industry. You and your students can do your own "digging" about natural resources on the Web, from sites on the coal and oil that set off yesterday's booms and busts to ones on today's efforts to conserve resources.

Start at the Rig Museum, to view photos of Drake's oil well and the Pennsylvania oil boom as part of a pictorial history of the American oil and gas industry. If you are studying what coal mining does to land and water, you can learn how land is reclaimed from abandoned mines or research topics for a class debate about mining at the U.S. government's Office of Surface Mining site.

For a broader view of energy resources, the California Energy Commission's Energy Quest offers a site rich in fun activities for kids. Students can play Percy's Puzzles, such as word scrambles and crosswords, or explore Poor Richard's Energy Almanac to compare resources used to heat and light homes in Ben Franklin's day to today. Peek into the future by checking out the alternative-fuel cars and trucks being built to conserve Earth's resources in the 21st century.

The Rig Museum
http://www.rigmuseum.com/

Office of Surface Mining
http://www.osmre.gov/

Energy Quest
http://www.energyquest.ca
.gov/index.html