GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION AT THE OKLAHOMA SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS

According to an article in the May, 2008, Geotimes, the number of students taking Earth Science in High School peaked in the 1970s at 28% and has declined to 8% today. Approximately 20,000 students major in geoscience in college, in spite of the starting salaries currently offered. These graduates cannot fill the current need for geoscientists in the US.

In December, 2006, Chesapeake Energy Corporation endowed the first Chair of Geosciences at the high school level in the US with a $500,000 donation to the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics (OSSM). "We need the best and brightest minds to seek solutions to our country's long-term need for energy resources," said Chesapeake Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Aubrey K. McClendon.

The first course, Exploration Geosciences, was offered in the spring semester of 2008 to 7 students (10% of those eligible). This rigorous course, based on a senior-level course first taught at the University of Tulsa, starts with a brief introduction to subsurface geology, then presents an overview of primarily geophysical exploration techniques for both petroleum exploration and near-surface investigations. The highlights of the semester were a trip to Chesapeake's 3D visualization room and a Saturday trip to a 3D seismic survey. This course has been offered each semester since.

A second course, Geoscience Seminar, was offered for the first time in the spring of 2009. The 5 students in this seminar course selected, researched, and presented topics of interest to the class. Topics included volcanoes, earthquakes, clean energy, and environmental issues (just to name a few). The students spent about half their time developing a single, coherent, national energy policy which they presented to the entire student body at the end of the semester. In spite of the wide range of political, environmental, and personal philosophies, the entire class agreed on the final policy.

The two courses offer students first a structured overview of geological investigations then the opportunity to apply this knowledge to topics or their choosing. During the seminar course they learn that most issues today cannot be solved with purely scientific reasoning but that emotion and politics must also be considered.