TEACHING PERSPECTIVES ON PETROLEUM GEOSCIENCE: AN EXAMPLE FROM THE BIG HORN BASIN, WYOMING

Since 2004, a week-long segment of the Iowa State/University of Nebraska field camp summer session in the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, has been a field-based petroleum play assessment. The four instructional staff and guests come from across the fossil energy spectrum: majors, large independents, local Wyoming operators, and consultancies. Students integrate their recently-acquired geologic mapping experience and local geologic knowledge with basics of petroleum geology to develop a prospect and present it in a group setting just as a prospect would be pitched in a corporate setting. The week also offers these undergraduate students a candid environment to ask professional industry geologists about their job duties and to have a discussion about energy.